Flash smelting is an eminent copper production process, which have a major share of copper produced worldwide. Losses of copper during flash smelting and other copper production processes is a major concerned for the copper industries. Amount of losses depend on the type of process and copper matte grade. Around 2-3 % copper is loss in slag phase after separation of slag and matte (Copper Industries min products). This causes huge loss to copper industries annually. According to an estimation, around 181 kilo tonnes of copper is loss out of 9 Mega tonnes annually which causes loss of approximately 458 million euros each year. Secondly, depleting copper resources have been a major issue recently that have led to smelting low quality ores, and to accommodate recycle electronics material containing copper to certain level. This requires a major optimization of the process parameters for the new raw material at the industrial level. This study is targeting to that goal by dynamic modelling of flow and heat transfer coupled with chemical kinetics in an industrial scale copper flash smelting settler.

2021