Matte converting in copper smelting

ABSTRACT

Copper matte converting is the key step to ensure high primary copper recovery in the smelting chain. Its development and the fundamental research carried out over the past decades will be reviewed. The operational challenges and environmental concern of batch-wise Peirce-Smith Converting vessel have induced more than 50 years ago attempts to continuous converting process which have materialised in the last two decades in the flash converting technology, utilised currently in one smelter in USA and three smelters in China. Their annual copper production is in excess of 1.5 Mt, and selected fundamental studies behind this major technological invention will be examined.

KEYWORDS:

• Sulphide smelting
• fluxing
• fluid dynamics
• refractories
• environmental performance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Pekka Taskinen http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4054-952X

Guven Akdogan http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1780-4075

Ari Jokilaakso http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0582-7181