The recovery of copper by leaching-solvent extraction-electrowinning: Towards the XXI century

The obtention of copper from primary resources by solvent extraction has been developed continuously over the past 25-30 years, entailing a continuous effort both of research and development and being one of the biggest successes in the industrial development of a given metal. The success of this operation was not possible without the corresponding developments, at the same time, of the two accompanying operations (leaching and electrowinning), which perfectly coupled in the operational sequence. The recovery of copper by means of these hydrometallurgical processes is firmly established and being reflecting in the growing number of operational plants under construction and/or commisioned until the beginning of the XXI century. This work presents data on the succesfully application of the sequence of operations on the recovery of a metal: copper.