| Abstract Scope |
Copper producers are facing environmental and profitability challenges due to declining ore grades and complex concentrate mineralogy. To address this, smelters are embracing multi-metal recovery, energy efficiency, e-scrap recycling, and safe waste disposal. As the pyrometallurgical process remains predominant in copper production, the evaluation of different technologies through advanced modeling tools, such as HSCTM and FactSageTM, is crucial. These tools simulate flowsheets and calculate equilibrium element distributions, optimizing subsystems for nine key elements, Cu-Pb-Zn-Fe-Ca-O-Si-Al-Mg. The energy consumptions, consumables, emissions, scrap handling capacity, waste products and energy efficiency of different technologies are compared and discussed. |