From complex acidic aqueous electrolytes and wastewaters containing copper ions to cathodic copper. Novel bankable copper production process.

Abstract:

Authors: Przemyslaw Los, Michal Gieron, Slawomir Ruta, Przemyslaw ZaprzalskiNanometallurgy S.A., PolandIn our previous studies we have shown that potentiostatic (and potentiostatic pulse) electrolysis could be applied to obtain copper of high purity from copper industrial electrolytes, by-products and wastewaters of copper industry. On the basis of previous results a new, patent pending technologies of selective electrowining from complex acidic aqueous electrolytes and wastewaters have been developed. In this paper for the first time the pilot scale test results of the technology will be presented focusing on copper, silver, arsenic and nickel deposition with purity up to 99,999%. The properties of the cathodes obtained using a new process as well as some of its important parameters will be discussed.The new method can be implemented in the existing copper refineries without essential changes in the tank houses apart from the power supplies (rectifiers and software) which should fulfill certain specific requirements. There are many advantages of our process in comparison to the existing galvanostatic electrorefining and electrowining namely much higher cathode current densities can be used to obtain commercially pure (grade A) copper deposit with very high current efficiencies which can eventually contribute to factory foot print reduction and/or production scale-up. Other positive aspects of our technology result from the fact that cathodic copper is received in broad spectrum of copper content in electrolyte from 50g/liter to 1mg/liter, there is no co-deposition of Arsenic neither evolution of AsH3 gas and pure crystalline Arsenic as a commercial product can be obtained.Potential consequences to hydrometallurgical plants will be discussed.

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