Arsenic activities in molten copper and copper sulfide melts

In recent years, the concentration of the group Va elements such as arsenic, antimony, and bismuth has been increasing in copper concentrates. The elimination and recovery of these elements during the copper smelting process have presented serious problems. While the distribution of minor elements has been studied extensively, very little knowledge exists on the activities of these minor elements in copper mattes. Consequently, in this study the activities of arsenic were measured to determine activity coefficients of arsenic in the dilute solution region of molten copper, in Cu₂S saturated copper, and in copper mattes equilibrated with copper at 1423 K by a mass spectrometric Knudsen effusion technique. Formerly with the Department of Metallurgy and Materials Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada