Behavior and removal of associated metals in the secondary metallurgy of copper

Copper in recycling material is accompanied by various groups of metals: (1) Metals which are much more negative than copper, such as Fe, Al, Si, P, Be. They are mainly removed by fire refining during the recovery of copper and leave the process in form of slag. (2) Metals which are more positive than copper or difficult to separate by fire refining and which are partly reduced together with the copper. These metals are for example As, Sb, Ni, Ag, Pb, Zn, Sn. They are enriched in intermediate products and recovered from these or remain for their major part in the fire-refined copper and can be separated by electrolytic refining and recovered from the electrolyte or anode slime. This report describes the process of Huettenwerke Kayser AG in Germany and illustrates how considerable returns of material are partly required to separate or recover associated metals. They are finally removed in saleable products.