Abstract
The Fe-Cu alloy, that is generated at the bottom of an electric furnace (EF) in a zinc pyrometallurgical smelter, is considered as a kind of solid waste. To separate the copper and iron from this waste, an innovative technology that uses selective oxidation smelting in the absence of SiO2 is proposed herein. The constituents, phases and morphology of the samples were initially investigated by chemical titration, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive spectrometry (SEM-EDS) analyses to interpret the mineralogy. Then, the effects of several factors on the separation performance of Cu and Fe, such as oxygen concentration, smelting time, gaseous flow rate and smelting temperature, were examined; the reaction behaviour of As and Sn were also considered, and the optimum process parameters were determined. A crude copper containing 75.74% of Cu, 14.67% of As, 4.40% of Sn and 5.07% of Fe was obtained, and the distributions of Cu, As and Sn in the crude copper were 89.24%, 70.93% and 71.5%, respectively. Moreover, a ferrous oxide slag containing 70.62% of Fe, 0.999% of Cu, 0.272% of As and 0.15% of Sn was produced and the distributions of Cu, As and Sn in the slag were 10.76%, 12.03% and 22.30%, respectively. The smelting products were further characterized by various detection methods and phase equilibrium calculations were performed. The results revealed that the copper entered the ferrous oxide slag in the form of a Cu-As-Sn-Fe alloy, and the setting of this alloy was inhibited by the formed Al-Fe-bearing oxides. It is a promising method to achieve cleaner utilization of Fe-Cu alloy residues.
Published Version
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