Simplified copper production from primary concentrates: The direct electrorefining of white metal/copper matte

Commercial copper plants utilizing current best technology are tending towards an ever increasing scale in which the concentrate requirements cannot be serviced by a single mine. In such cases, raw materials are often sourced from different mines which are often far away from the production plant and usually with very different ore compositions. These plants tend to use the traditional thermal processing steps of smelting, converting to blister, anode refining and casting to produce copper anodes that are then refined in a sulphate electrorefining operation. These thermal steps are in some cases troublesome and require the recycling of considerable quantities of material. A new process was developed taking advantage of the latest developments of the first thermal step of the classic loop, the smelting of copper concentrate to high grade matte or white metal using the well-known Ausmelt(R) Top Submerged Lancing (TSL) technology. The white metal and/or high grade matte product is converted directly to copper cathode and elemental sulphur using the ECUPREX(TM) technology. This approach provides an alternative to the traditional thermal steps of conversion to blister, thermal refining and anode casting, which, especially on a small scale, can be expensive and problematic in terms of technical and environmental concerns. At first evaluation, this new process can be operated at low capacities, thereby changing the traditional approach to copper production. Instead of taking the concentrate to the copper production plant, the copper production plant is built closer to the mine with some significant economic and technical advantages.