Selective Ozone-Assisted Acid Leaching of Copper from Copper Smelter Slag by Using Isopropanol as a Solvent

Copper content in copper smelter slag exceeds that ores, which has attracted increasing interest to recover from this by-product of pyrometallurgical production. The isopropanol-sulfuric acid-ozone system been tested under different conditions extract metal containing chalcopyrite as a mineral. Isopropanol solvent played key role the recovery 87% after 5 h leaching, while use an aqueous solution sulfuric acid allowed only 13% be recovered. Iron extraction these was 10%. ozone spectroscopically proven oxidize ferrous ions form ferric ions, are effective oxidizers chalcopyrite. presence cuprous (Cu+) electrochemically. increased caused by stabilization isopropanol. limiting stage process chemical reaction on surface with activation energy 73.4 kJ mol−1.