Direct production of white metal and blister copper by cyclonic smelting

摘要

Blister copper can be produced directly from standard copper concentrates using a cyclonic reactor operating at 1500 - 1600℃ with pure, technical oxygen. High-arsenic concentrates can be smelted to white metal in a cyclonic reactor, and the solid ground white metal be converted to blister copper in a second cyclonic unit. The smelting of high arsenic concentrates (2.6%) to white metal allows removing over 95% of the arsenic in the off-gas. Another option is to operate the cyclonic reactor as a converting unit with dry, ground matte or white metal. This alternative could replace advantageously the conventional Peirce-Smith converters and could also compete with more advanced continuous converting process.