Fire Refining Process of Crude Copper

Why is Crude Copper Refining Necessary?

Crude copper produced by copper matte converting typically contains 98.5% to 99.5% copper, 0.5% to 1.5% impurities, and a certain amount of valuable rare and precious metals. The impurities, primarily including nickel, lead, arsenic, antimony, bismuth, iron, sulfur, and oxygen, must be removed. Simultaneously, the valuable precious metals need to be recovered. Therefore, refining crude copper is an essential step.

Three Primary Processes for Refining Crude Copper

Essentially, there are three main flowsheets for treating crude copper:

Direct Fire Refining to Commercial Copper

In this process, crude copper undergoes direct fire refining to produce commercial-grade copper. However, this method cannot recover valuable metals like gold and silver. The final product is suitable only for certain less demanding mechanical applications.

Direct Casting into Anodes for Electrolysis

This method involves casting crude copper directly into anodes for subsequent electrolytic refining. A significant drawback is the poor quality of these anodes—they often have uneven surfaces, numerous pores, and contain slag inclusions with excessively high oxygen and sulfur levels. This leads to low current efficiency during electrolysis, high power consumption, increased solution purification requirements, higher anode slime production, elevated scrap anode rates, and ultimately, lower-quality cathode copper.

Fire Refining & Anode Casting Followed by Electrolysis

This is the most effective and widely adopted process. The crude copper is first fire-refined and then cast into high-quality anodes. These anodes undergo electrolytic refining to produce high-purity copper with excellent properties. Crucially, this integrated flow sheet allows for the efficient recovery of valuable precious metals contained within the original blister copper. Most modern plants utilize this method.

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