Investigation of the Leaching of Sarcheshmeh Reverberatory Furnace Slag Using Hydrogen Peroxide and Hematite Nano Particles

The present study aims to investigate the slag leaching of Sarcheshmeh copper reverberatory furnace using sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide. The results of the analyses indicated that the slag contains 0.7% of copper and 37.75% of iron. Most of the slag minerals include fayalite, magnetite, diopside and chalcopyrite. This research scrutinizes the effect of different parameters including the size of particles, temperature, PH, the concentration of hydrogen peroxide and the velocity pulp stirring on the recovery of copper and iron. Based on the results, as the size of particles of slag is reduced from 150- 250 to 48-74 micron, the maximum recovery of copper and iron is increased from 23.03% and 22.34% to 26.14 and 28.12%, respectively. However, as the size of particles is diminished less than 48 microns, less increase is detected in the recovery of copper and iron. When the pulp PH is reduced from 2.4 to 1.5, the recovery amount of copper and iron is increased from 18.12% and 20.95% to 29.14% and 31.04%, respectively. Changing the primary concentration of hydrogen peroxide affected the copper recovery the most. Increasing the concentration of hydrogen peroxide from 0.5 M to 2 M enhances copper recovery from 29.14% to 54.12%. Increasing the pulp temperature from 35 to 45°c subjected to enhance copper recovery from 53.5% to 59.5%. In fact, the enhancement of temperature to 50°c mostly influenced iron recovery. Using the hematite nano- particles in the leaching process leads to improve the function of hydrogen peroxide and increase the copper recovery.