Vanadium (II) Sulfate for the Reductive Leaching of Chalcopyrite: Replacing Smelting with Electrolysis for Copper Production

Abstract The demand for copper is expected to outpace supply in the coming decades due part emergence of wind and solar technologies, which require about five times as much traditional energy sources. This work introduces a potentially transformative hydrometallurgical process extract from chalcopyrite, thereby sustain high rate production throughout 21 st century. Chalcopyrite reacted with vanadium (II) sulfate first time enable rapid, clean, complete recovery copper. Reactions between 39 g/L concentrate, 1 M sulfate, various concentrations sulfuric acid yielded final product solid was characterized by X‐ray diffraction (XRD) scanning electron microscopy‐energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM‐EDS) analysis. products were leached subsequent step demonstrate yields ranging 95–99 %. ion may be regenerated an electrolysis unit that leverages advances flow battery technologies.