Abstract
With increasing impurity contents in concentrates, the control of the minor elements is an important issue for the oxygen bottom blown copper smelting process (Shuikoushan process or SKS process). In this work, the distribution behaviors of the minor elements (such as Pb, Zn, As, Sb, and Bi) among the matte, slag, and gas phases as a function of matte grades was investigated by adjusting the ratios of oxygen/ore in the SKS process. With a matte grade around 70%, about 82% As and 70% Bi enters the gas phase, and about 70% Sb and 64% Zn reports to the slag phase, while 55% lead enters the matte phase. The tendency of changes in the distribution of the minor elements in the SKS process is different from that in the Isasmelt process and the Flash smelting process. It may be concluded from this study that the distributions of the minor elements could be optimized to reduce adverse effects in the SKS process by regulating the matte grade.
Highlights
Copper is considered to be one of the important metals, and it is widely used in electronics, machinery, construction, national defense, and other fields
The distributions of the minor elements in the SKS process are compared with the Isasmelt process [22]
Impurities significantly affect the performance of copper smelting processes, and the control of minor elements is an important issue for the SKS process
Summary
Copper is considered to be one of the important metals, and it is widely used in electronics, machinery, construction, national defense, and other fields. The oxygen bottom blown copper smelting process is a newly developed intensified smelting process, which has been widely applied in copper production in China in the past 10 years [1,2]. This process was first industrially tested in the Shuikoushan (SKS) smelter in 1990 and was named originally as the “SKS process”, which is referred to as BBS (bottom blown smelting) or BBF (bottom blown furnace). In China, the first commercial oxygen bottom blown copper smelting furnace was installed and commercially operated at Fangyuan Nonferrous Metals Co., Ltd. In China, the first commercial oxygen bottom blown copper smelting furnace was installed and commercially operated at Fangyuan Nonferrous Metals Co., Ltd. (Dongying, China) in 2008 with an initial design capacity of 50,000 t/a cathode copper, which was expended to 100,000 t/a cathode copper in 2010
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