Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin, Ekaterinburg, Russia:

K. A. Karimov, Post-Graduate Student, e-mail: kirill_karimov07@mail.ru
V. I. Neustroev, Assistant Professor
S. S. Naboychenko, Professor, Head of a Chair of Metallurgy of Heavy and Non-Ferrous Metals

Lead, zinc and arsenic circulate in intermediate products of copper metallurgy enterprises such as dusts because of bad quality of used concentrates and inclusion of secondary raw materials to process. Recycling of these dusts in smelting aggregates leads to contamination of blister copper with arsenic and lead. This article shows the results of oxidizing sulfuric acid pressure leaching and leaching with copper sulfate solution of mattes, obtained from joint reduction smelting of these dusts. These mattes contain significant amount of arsenic and lead along with copper (up to 40%). Oxidizing sulfuric acid pressure leaching, carried out in the temperature range of 140–180 ^oС, acidity range of 10–80 g/dm³, and pressure of 0.4 MPa, allows to extract 94.2% of copper to solution. Iron, arsenic and lead remain in cake after leaching even at repeated leaching. This fact makes difficulties for cake processing in lead enterprises by conventional technology. Pressure leaching with copper sulfate solution of mattes is offered as alternative to oxidizing sulfuric acid pressure leaching. This leaching allows to extract up to 93% of arsenic, zinc and iron to solution in the temperature range of 140–180 ^oС. There is offered the matte processing scheme, including pressure leaching with copper sulfate solution as one of the basic operations followed by oxidizing sulfuric acid pressure leaching. This research project was supported by Ural Federal University under the Framework Program of development of Ural Federal University through the “Young scientists UrFU” competition.

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