AN OVERVIEW OF PROCESS OPTIONS AND BEHAVIORAL ASPECTS OF THE COPPER VALUES RECOVERED FROM THE COPPER BLEED STREAM OF A COPPER SMELTER DEVELOPED AT THE NATIONAL METALLURGICAL LABORATORY

In the present research, an effort has been made to prepare copper salt/powder from the copper bleed stream generated during the electrowinning of pure copper from the copper anode in a copper smelter. Various approaches have been opted for the complete recovery of copper values such as: evaporation–crystallization, electrolytic process, and direct hydrogen reduction. Physical and chemical properties of copper powder/salt produced from the large-scale experiments from actual plant and model solutions have been evaluated for P/M applications and compared with the standard properties. Thus, mixed crystal suitable for recycling back to the system as a makeup salt containing nickel in a tolerable range could be recovered by evaporation and crystallization of the bleed stream up, to 50%. Copper powder recovery by the electrolysis process at a current density of 700 A/m² was about 95%. Scanning electron microscope examination showed that the powder was dendritic in nature. On annealing, the purity of the copper powder was found to be 99.95%. The annealed powder had apparent density of 3.04 g/cc, hydrogen loss 0.72%, and acid insoluble as 0.27%. On compaction of <104-µm sized powder, the green density was found to be 8.7 g/cc. Similarly, the recovery of the copper powder obtained from the model copper solution by the hydrogen reduction process was found to be >99% and the annealed powder had an apparent density of 3.50 g/cc, flow rate 35.6 g/min, hydrogen loss 0.195%, purity 99.8%, and green density of 8.57 g/cc while the powder from the actual plant solution was found to have an apparent density of 3.49 g/cc, flow rate 46.0 g/min, hydrogen loss 0.598%, purity 99.4%, and green density 8.57 g/cc for the powder < 100 µm in size. Thus, the properties of copper powder produced by hydrogen reduction and electrolytic route were compared and were found to be suitable for the P/M applications.