Method for producing cathode copper
AssigneeOutotec (Finland) Oy
InventorAkusti JAATINEN
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Abstract
Provided is a method for producing cathode copper. The method comprises a smelting step including feeding sulfidic copper bearing material and oxygen-bearing reaction gas into a suspension smelting furnace, to produce blister copper, a fire refining step including feeding blister copper into an anode furnace to produce molten anode copper, an anode casting step to produce cast anodes, a quality checking step for dividing cast anodes into accepted cast anodes and rejected cast anodes, an electrolytic refining step including subjecting accepted cast anodes to electrolytic refining in an electrolytic cell to produce cathode copper and as a by-product, spent cast anodes, and a recycling step for recycling anode copper of rejected cast anodes and anode copper of spent cast anodes.
Claims12
A method for producing cathode copper, wherein the method comprises
- a smelting step including feeding sulfidic copper bearing material such as sulfidic copper concentrate or finely ground copper matte and additionally oxygen-bearing reaction gas and slag-forming material into a reaction shaft of a suspension smelting furnace by means of a burner that is arranged at a top of the reaction shaft of the suspension smelting furnace, whereby sulfidic copper bearing material, oxygen-bearing reaction gas and slag-forming material react in the reaction shaft of the suspension smelting furnace into blister copper and slag, and collecting blister copper and slag in a settler of the suspension smelting furnace to form a blister layer containing blister copper and a slag layer containing slag on top of the blister layer in the settler of a suspension smelting furnace,
- a fire refining step including feeding blister copper obtained in the smelting step into an anode furnace and fire-refining blister copper in the anode furnace producing molten anode copper in the anode furnace,
- an anode casting step including feeding molten anode copper obtained in the fire refining step into anode casting molds to produce cast anodes,
- a quality checking step for dividing cast anodes obtained in the anode casting step into accepted cast anodes and rejected cast anodes,
- an electrolytic refining step including subjecting accepted cast anodes to electrolytic refining in an electrolytic cell to produce cathode copper and as a by-product, spent cast anodes, and
- a recycling step for recycling anode copper of rejected cast anodes and anode copper of spent cast anodes,
- wherein the recycling step including feeding rejected cast anodes and spent anodes into a mechanical breaker for mechanically breaking rejected cast anodes and spent cast anodes to produce anode copper grain and feeding anode copper grain into the reaction shaft of the suspension smelting furnace by means of copper grain feeding means.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.