Separation and recovery of copper in Cu-As-bearing copper electrorefining black slime by oxidation acid leaching and sulfide precipitation

A new hydrometallurgical route for separation and recovery of Cu from Cu-As-bearing copper electrorefining black slime was developed. The proposed process comprised oxidation acid leaching of Cu-As-bearing slime and selective sulfide precipitation of Cu from the leachate. The effects of various process parameters on the leaching and precipitation of Cu and As were investigated. At the first stage, Cu extraction of 95.2% and As extraction of 97.6% were obtained at 80 ℃ after 4 h with initial H2 SO4 concentration of 1.0 mol/L and liquid-to-solid ratio of 10 mL/g. In addition, the leaching kinetics of Cu and As was successfully reproduced by the Avrami model, and the apparent activation energies were found to be 33.6 and 35.1 kJ/mol for the Cu and As leaching reaction, respectively, suggesting a combination of chemical reaction and diffusion control. During the selective sulfide precipitation, about 99.4% Cu was recovered as CuS, while only 0.1% As was precipitated under the optimal conditions using sulfide-to-copper ratio of 2.4:1, time of 1.5 h and temperature of 25 ℃.

Chlorine inclusion mechanism in high purity copper electrorefining from nitric acid system

A practical approach was introduced to study the inclusion mechanism of chlorine in high purity copper electrorefining from nitric acid system via cyclic voltammetry(CV) combined with electrodeposition experiments. The CV curves display an obvious reduction peak of Cu Cl intermediate, which can provide an insight into the electrochemical behavior of this inclusion. Experimental results show that the increase of HNO3 concentration is favorable to reducing the quantity of chlorine inclusion although there is a slight decline in cathodic current efficiency. The optimum conditions for copper electrorefining in nitric acid system are HNO3 concentration in solution of 1-2 mol/L, moderate temperature of ~35 ℃ with current density not exceeding 25 m A/cm2. Based on the theoretical studies, an optimized copper electrorefining experiment was designed to simulate the industrial electrolysis, by which high purity copper can be obtained with chlorine inclusion less than 10 μg/g and current efficiency higher than 90%.

Comparison of effective parameters for copper powder production via electrorefining and electrowinning cells and improvement using DOE methods

The influences of cupric ion concentration （5-35 g/L）,current density （500-2000 A/m2）,circulation rate of the electrolyte solution （15-120 mL/min）,and temperature （25-60℃） on the physical and chemical properties of copper powders obtained in electrolysis cells were investigated.Two industrial processes,electrorefining （ER） cells with a synthetic electrolyte and electrowinning （EW） cells with an original solution of coppermineral leaching,were utilized to produce copper powders.Finally,the statistical full factorial method of design of experiments （DOE） was employed to investigate the interaction or the main effects of processes.The results show that increasing the copper concentration and temperature can increase the grain size,apparent density,and electrical energy consumption.On the other hand,increasing the current density and circulation rate of the electrolyte can decrease them.This production process is optimized via DOE to control the interactive and main effects to produce copper powders with favorable properties.