HANDLING OF FINES DURING PYROMETALLURGICAL PROCESSES: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS

During the mining, handling, and processing activities, the production of fines is inevitable due to breakage of large particles caused by compression, abrasion, attrition and impact of the ore particles with one another and the equipment during beneficiation and handling. The fines generated as a result, are generally high-grade feed stock materials and add value to processes. Many attempts to recycle these fines have shown some limitations because of the quality of binders used for agglomeration. Pyrometallurgical processes are based on the principle of “look at the slag and the metal will look at it itself “to emphasise on the quality of the slag for better of metal recovery. Inorganic binders have proven to be impurities carriers therefore disturbing smelting processes due to poor slag composition. The current investigation deals with the impact of organic binders on copper slag briquettes used for copper recovery during carbothermic reduction. It transpired that organic binders have shown improvement on the behaviour of the copper slag briquettes during carbothermic reduction in the furnace. XRF, XRD and SEM-EDS have been used to characterise the head samples and products.