In. 22nd Int. Conf. Nonferrous Minerals and Metals,6-7th July 2018; Eds.Abhilash & T.

Sreenivas

Characterization and recovery of metals from ESP dust of an

Indian copper plant
Vikash Barti1, Soni Jha2, J.N. Patel2, Jhumki Hait2,*, Kuldeep Bauddh1, N.S.
Randhawa2
Department of Environmental Science, Central University of Jharkhand, Rannchi-835205 (India)
Metal Extraction & Forming Division, CSIR-National Metallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur-831007 (India)

Abstract

The flue dust generated during flash smelting of copper concentrate in a copper plant is collected by electrostatic
precipitator. This dust contains a number of valuable and hazardous metals such as iron, nickel, cobalt, molybdenum,
arsenic, antimony, bismuth and lead including a considerable amount of copper. Therefore, there is a need to recover the
metals from copper smelter dust which is essential for economic reason, for reducing environmental hazards and also for
better processing in the subsequent stages of the treatment for copper production. In the present study detailed
characterization of the ESP dust received from a typical Indian copper plant has been carried out by particle size analysis,
chemical analysis and morphological analyses. The results obtained show that the major portion of the dust is in the size
range of 364.6µm. Regarding chemical composition, it contains about 21.28% copper, 13.1% iron, 0.07% nickel, 0.02%
cobalt, and 0.24% molybdenum along with other minor elements. On the basis of the characterization studies, leaching of
the samples in water, acid and alkaline medium have been carried out to recover/removal of the metals. A maximum of
81.32% recovery of copper could be achieved in 10% HCl leaching while H 2SO4 leaching resulted in 78.5 % copper.

Keywords. Copper; Hydrometallurgy, Leaching, Smelting

1. Introduction

Copper is one of the essential metals which are used in almost every industry. The copper plant wastes are
also sources of a number of valuable metals. The conventional process for the extraction of copper is pyro-
electrometallurgical method. In this method the extraction of copper from the ore is first concentrated to
remove gangue materials before processing for copper extraction. Then the concentrated ore containing about
30% of copper is charged into the smelter along with the flux to produce matte having 50-70% of copper. The
matte is then processed in converter for producing blister copper containing about 98% of copper which is
again charged in anode furnace before anode casting (Ray, 1991). During all the stages of processing, from
copper ore mining to anode casting various types of wastes are generated. Flue dust is one of them and it is

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +91-657-2345186; fax: +91-657-2345235.

E-mail address: jhumki@nmlindia.org.
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generated during flash smelting process of concentrated copper in a copper plant. The flue dust is collected
with the help of electrostatic precipitator. The dust contains a number of valuable metals such as copper, iron,
nickel, cobalt, zinc, tellurium, selenium and molybdenum (Chen et al., 2012). Therefore, there is a need to
recover these valuable metals from copper smelter dust which is essential for economic reason and also for the
better processing in the subsequent stages of the treatment for copper production. A large number of studies
have been carried out by different researchers on the extraction of metals contained in flue dust. According to
an author, the sulphuric acid pressure leaching in the absence of oxygen provided the best separation of copper
and arsenic. About 80% of arsenic goes into solution during leaching, and more than 90% of copper remains
in the residue (Ke et al., 1984). According to another researcher the leaching of flue dust sample with water,
dissolves copper and zinc sulfates, and partially, arsenic oxides, in an exothermic process. The leaching of the
residue after water leaching is subjected to acid leaching for increasing the dissolution of copper, zinc, and
arsenic (Morales et al., 2010). An alkaline leach process has also been developed to recover the metal values
present in the copper smelter dust sample; the leaching agents used in this case are sodium hydroxide and
sodium chloride (Palumbo et al., 1995).
The detailed literature search showed that the hydrometallurgical processing is most suitable for treatment
of flue dust to recover the valuable metals. However, it is necessary to characterize the sample before
processing. Here in this study the flue dust sample was received from a typical Indian copper plant.
The characterization studies for this sample were carried out by various methods including particle size
analysis, chemical analysis and morphological analyses. The studies were necessary to obtain a broad
knowledge of the physical and chemical properties of the sample and thus be able to use the most suitable
techniques/methods to recover copper along with the other valuable metals. The characterization study here
showed that the dust contains a significant amount of copper mainly in oxide form with a small amount of
copper in sulfide form also.

2. Experimental

2.1. Copper dust sample

Sample was obtained from one of the copper industry in India. The as received sample was first
ground in mortar and pastel for homogenization, representative sample was obtained from the bulk sample by
coning and quartering method (Do et al, 2017). A part of the representative was used for chemical analysis
and characterization studies and the rest are used for leaching experiment.

2.2. Characterization of sample

Characterization of the dust sample was done by various methods which include chemical analysis by
ICP-OES, and particle size analysis by particle size analyzer [Malvern-Master Size, Make-UK]. The sample
was characterized by XRD using Bruker AXS D8 (Make-Germany) to determine the major mineralogical
phases present in the sample (Balladares et al., 2014). Investigation of the sample was also made using a
scanning electron microscope equipped with EDS [ThermoNoran NSS-300, Make-USA] to identify the
valuable metals present and for detailed microstructure.
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2.3. Leaching equipment and procedure

The copper dust sample of 364.6µm size obtained after sample preparation by the process mentioned
above was used for the experiments. The experiment was carried out in water, acid, and alkaline medium. The
chemical elements used for the
experiments are H2SO4, HCl,
and NaOH of laboratory grade
(Ha et al., 2015).
All the experiments for leaching
were carried out in 50 ml scale in a
three-neck reactor as shown in the
Fig.1.The sample was leached at a
stirring rate of 300min- 1, and with a
solid liquid ratio of 1/10
(weight/volume).

Fig. 1. Set up for leaching process

The reagent of required strength was prepared first and then the solution was heated to the required
temperature before addition of the solid sample after continuous stirring for the required time the slurry was
filtered and the leach liquor was collected, and the leach residue was then washed with the distilled water so
that the metals remains in the residue which having tendency to dissolve into the water gets dissolved and
comes into the filtrate (washed solution) such as copper which are present in the form of oxide, comes into the
wash liquor (Wu et al., 2015). The leach liquor was then used for further analysis.

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3. Results and discussion

3.1. Characterization of copper flue dust sample

3.1.1. Particle size analysis

The results of this analysis are presented in Table 1 and Fig.2. The result shows that 10% of the
material is accounted for less than 0.473 µm size particles, 30% is accounted for less than 8.89 µm size, 50%
is accounted for less than 17.62 µm size, 80% is accounted for less than 51.62 µm size particles and the
remaining material is more than 364.6 µm in size.

Table 1: The particle size distribution of the copper flue dust sample

Particle size(µm) Volume (%) Cumulative volume % Cumulative volume

0.055 0.03 0.03 0.00354832
0.109 1.05 1.08 0.1277396
0.473 10.09 11.17 1.32115865
8.89 31.56 42.73 5.05399364
17.62 50.2 92.93 10.9915195
51.62 81.65 174.58 20.6488699
69.21 86.54 261.12 30.8845967
102.3 90.51 351.63 41.5898849
166.8 95.01 446.64 52.8274214
271.9 99.23 545.87 64.5640886
299.8 99.66 645.53 76.3516151
330.6 99.94 745.47 88.1722592
364.6 100 845.47 100
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Fig. 2. Graph of volume % versus particle size of the copper flue dust

3.1.2. Mineralogical analysis

(a) X-Ray powder diffraction

The result of the X-Ray diffraction of this copper flue dust is presented in Fig. 3. The analysis reveals the
possible mineralogical phases present in the copper flue dust sample.

Fig. 3. X-ray diffractogram of copper dust sample

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(b) SEM studies

Fig.4. shows the micrograph of the flue dust sample under scanning electron microscope. The morphology
of the sample reveals the presence of spherical shaped particles with varying sizes.

Fig.4. Scanning electron micrograph of copper flue dust sample

3.2. Leaching studies

3.2.1. Effect of leaching agent

Experiments were carried out to know the effect of different leaching agents on leaching of copper dust.
From Fig. 5.It can be concluded that the different leaching agents have different effects on the recovery of
metals. Recovery of Cu with other valuable metals is highest in 10% H 2SO4 concentration (keeping the other
parameter such as stirring rate, temp and time constant). In alkaline leaching (NaOH) it was observed that the
Cu and the others metals remain in the leach residue. Only 33.36% Mo comes into the leach liquor.
 Author name / Proc. Int. Conf. on Nonferrous Minerals and Metals 01 (2018) 000–000

Fig. 5. Effect of leaching agent (a)

Distilled water, (b) 10% H2SO4, (c)
10% HCl and (d) 10% NaOH

3.2.2. Effect of leaching

time

It is one of the important

factors that affect the leaching
reaction. It affects the

dissolution and precipitation both, Fig. 6 shows the recovery at various leaching duration, keeping the others
parameter constant (Temp.40oC, 10% H2SO4 concentration, stirring rate 600 rpm, S/L ratio 1:10). It has been
observed that 2 h time is sufficient for maximum leaching of Cu. On further increasing the duration of the
leaching the recovery percent decreases but it was observed that the recovery percent of Mo is highest at 4 h.

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Fig. 6. Effect of time on the leaching of Cu, Fe, Co, Ni and Mo in 10% H2SO4.

3.2.3. Effect of leaching temperature

Temperature is also an important factor for affecting the leaching reaction. In this experiment we have
observed that as the temperature rises the recovery of Cu also increases in water leaching experiment at 600
rpm, solid: liquid ratio 1:10 and the leaching time of 1h. The experiments were carried out at various
temperatures ranging from room temperature to 80 oC as shown in Fig. 7. The Fig. 7 shows that after 60oC the
recovery becomes almost constant except Cu.

Fig. 7. Effect of
temperature on leaching
of copper flue dust
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4. Conclusion

Copper flue dust is the wastes generated during processing of copper ore for extraction of copper by
conventional way. Copper dust contains significant amount of Cu mainly in the form of copper oxide (Cu2O).
Small amount of copper is also present in the form of sulfide (Cu8S5) as indicated by XRD analysis. The
particle size analysis shows the presence of particles in the range of 0.055 µm to 364.6 µm. A maximum of
81.32% recovery of copper could be achieved by leaching in 10%HCl medium and H 2SO4 leaching resulted in
78.5% copper recovery. It is also found that with the increase in leaching temperature from room temp. to
80oC the recovery of metals is increased. It can also be observed that 2 h of leaching is found to be sufficient
to extract the optimum amount of metals.

Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to the Director, CSIR-NML, Jamshedpur for his permission to carry out this work.

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