Electrolysis of chalcopyrite

Abstract: Copper is one of the most important metals globally, due to its wide application range and excellent chemical properties. Today it is commonly produced from chalcopyrite concentrates by the pyrometallurgical route with high emissions of greenhouse gasses. Tougher restrictions from authorities and governments on the industry give rise to research on other production routes for metals. Research has proven that copper production from chalcopyrite concentrates by the electrochemical route is possible. The project purposes were to produce copper from a chalcopyrite concentrate by removing sulfur during molten salt electrolysis and determine how the trace elements arsenic and antimony distributed. The chalcopyrite concentrate used in the trials was clean with low amount of impurities, therefore a dirty pyrite concentrate with higher content of impurities was used for determining the distribution of As and Sb. The electrolysis would roughly process 80 g of raw concentrate. The experimental set-up consisted of a pit-furnace with a stainless-steel crucible filled with 43.9 wt% NaCl and 56.1 wt% KCl.. The working electrode was composed of baskets made of molybdenum mesh containing either 2 or 4 briquettes of 20 g. The counter electrode was composed of a graphite block and the atmosphere was kept inert with nitrogen gas. The equimolar salt mixture was heated to 770 ° and a constant cell voltage at 2.5 V was applied until the current had decreased and stabilized.   It was concluded that the time-current curve for reduction of chalcopyrite followed a similar trend to that reported in the literature. The up-scaling of electrolysis of sulfuric concentrates was proven to be successful. Iron was captured on the inside of the sample holder and copper from the outside, separating the two elements into two fractions. This indicated that the separation of copper and iron occurred spontaneously, probably due to the magnetization of the reduced iron particles under the influence of the electromagnetic field induced by the electrolysis current.  Analyses by XRD, SEM, LECO and XRF proved that sulfur was reduced to < 0.2 wt% in the two product fractions. Most of the sulfuric compounds in the raw concentrates ended up as pure elements (As, Sb, Pd and Zn) in the copper product followed by the loss of the corresponding metallic elements in the exhaust gas due to evaporation of these elements.  Much knowledge of electrolysis of chalcopyrite was gained. To reach the original objectives further trials with an improved basket holder functioning as the cathode must be made. The results indicated that the electrochemical approach is suitable for copper production from chalcopyrite concentrates and further studies are recommended.