Efficient separation of lead and copper from copper scum enhanced by super-gravity

A large amount of copper scum is produced from the refining process of crude lead, which includes various metallic resources of lead, copper and arsenic. In this study, a novel method was proposed to efficiently recover lead and copper from the copper scum via super-gravity, and the effects of temperature, gravity coefficient and time on phase separation of lead and copper were systematically studied. It was found that the liquid lead and copper alloy particles were efficiently separated from copper scum by enhancing super gravity at a temperature between the melting point of lead and copper. Under the conditions of T=700-750 ℃ and G=450-600, the lead was efficiently recovered into metallic lead within 180-240 s with a high purity of 99.09%- 99.17% and a high recovery ratio of 98.02%-98.18%, while the copper was efficiently separated as copper alloy with a high recovery ratio of 99.79%-99.87%. On this basis, this study provides a new approach to efficient recovery of metallic lead and copper resources from hot copper scum.