Effects of fluxing conditions on copper smelting slag cleaning

In the copper smelting process, more than two tons of slag is produced with each ton of copper. Copper losses in smelting slags are made up of chemically soluble copper (≈ 30%) and as mechanically entrained matter droplets (≈ 70%). This is the key technical concern for copper industries, because those copper losses in the slag are strongly influencing the economy of the copper extraction process. For a typical copper smelter, a decrease of 0.1 wt% Cu in the slag over a year of operation can save an annual value of over several million dollars. Therefore, it is of great importance to recover copper from copper smelting slag.