Markovic and 4 co-authors reported in 2014 that a smelting plant in Bor extract copper from copper ores and copper concentrates by a pyrometallurgical process. During years of operation, a considerable amount of copper slag has been generated as a by-product and has been dumped. Copper contents in these slags are as high as 0.6 up to 0.8%. As such, this slag could be considered as a secondary source for copper reutilization. In this context, microscopy analysis of slag samples was carried out in order to determinate its mineralogical composition and to find a possibility for re-extraction of remaining copper from the slag. According to results of the investigation and phase occurrences in slag, it is possible to apply flotation for recovery of copper from these slags.
The authors concluded that:
- the amount of slags produced and landfilled from a reverbatory furnace in Bor over decades is estimated as 16-18 million tons. Generally, the contents of cooper, gold and silver in these slags are up to two times higher from contents of these metals in primary ores that are being exploit at present,
- mineralogical composition of these slag carried out in this work showed that the most dominant oxide minerals in these slag are fayalite and magnetite phases while the most dominant sulfide minerals is a solid solution of Cu-Fe-S, and
- flotation was selected as a process for processing the slag with the aim of recovering copper. Flotation test showed that the recovery rate of copper depends on portion of fine grinding, because the higher the portion of fine grinding the higher the liberation rate of copper bearing particles.
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