Treatment of Residues from the Copper Industry with an Alternative Approach for Electric Furnace Slag

Today’s copper industry sees itself confronted with a variety of different residues and by-products. This situation can be explained by the decreasing content of copper in the primary ore concentrate and the multitude of further downstream processes and applications. This work aims at giving an overview of the different residues that derive from the primary as well as the secondary copper industry and highlights the potential in eastern and southeastern Europe. The core part of this article describes different recycling and recovery methods, which can be split into two main categories. The direct treatment generally consists of a remelting step which builds on a detailed chemical analysis and aims at the preservation of the contained alloying elements. In contrast to the direct option, the conventional recycling consists of several process steps which gradually increase the purity and quality of the material.