Recovery of base and heavy metals from copper refining furnace dusts

Flue dust that is generated during the fire refining step of electrolytic copper production process, contains various base and heavy metals such as, Cu, Zn, Pb, Ni, Fe, Mg, Al, and Sn. Flue dust not only remains untreated within the process but it is also very costly to stockpile due to its chemical composition. The aim of this study is to recover the metallic values hydrometallurgically; mainly copper and zinc, from the flue dust that is kindly supplied by the largest refined copper producer of Turkey, with its 80,000 t/year production, "Sarkuysan Elektrolitik Bakir Sanayii ve Ticaret A.Ş." The flue dust was hydrometallurgically dissolved without any prior treatment. In these acidic leaching experiments, the parameters tried to be optimized were acid concentration, S/L ratio, stirring speed, temperature, and time. Approximately 100% of copper and zinc were dissolved at 0.5M H₂SO₄ concentration, 70°C, 1/20 S/L ratio, stirring speed of 600 rpm, and within 90 minutes of leaching period.