Recover of Cu from copper oxide ore using magnetic separation-leaching process and magnetism study of copper-containing minerals

Copper oxide ore is the important component of copper resources and cannot be effectively recovered by conventional beneficiation method. In this work, the low-content and complex copper oxide ore was efficiently recovered by magnetic-leaching process. Under the optimized magnetic separation condition (feed ore size: -2 mm, rod matrix size: 3 mm, magnetic induction intensity: 1.5 T, pulsating frequency: 100 r/min), copper grade of the concentrate was enriched from 1.50 % to 8.60 % with copper recovery of 76.63 %. Compared with direct leaching, magnetic-leaching process decreased acid consumption for 1 t Cu from 13.63 t to 2.92 t. Magnetic susceptibility measurement and DFT calculation results indicated that the Cu atom of played a critical role in determining magnetism for copper-containing minerals.