OBTAINING COPPER

 

OBTAINING COPPER

The first metals must have been in the form of nuggets. And surely they were pieces of copper or gold, since these are one of the few metals that are free in nature. The reddish color of the copper and the yellow tone of the gold must have attracted attention, and the metallic shine (Asimov Isaac, 1965)

Copper is a chemical element with a metallic, reddish appearance and belongs to the group of transition metals. one of the transition metals and important non-ferrous metal. Its usefulness is due to the combination of its chemical, physical and mechanical properties, as well as its electrical properties and its abundance. Copper was one of the first metals used by humans.

Most of the world's copper is obtained from mineral sulfides such as chalcocite, covelite, chalcopyrite, bornite, and enargite.(Outlet,2018) The oxidized minerals are cuprite, tenorite, malachite, azurite, chrysocolla, and brochanthite. Natural copper, once abundant in the United States, is now mined only in Michigan. The level of ore used in copper production has been steadily declining as richer minerals have been depleted and demand for copper has grown. There are large amounts of copper on Earth for future use if the lower grade minerals are used, and there is no probability that they will be depleted over a long period.(Lenntech-2019)

One of the most used processes to obtain copper is from Chile and they are called flotation and leaching, which manages to separate copper from the minerals that contain it. The use of one or another system regardless of the origin of the mineral.(Ministerio de minería,2015)

In the case of primary sulphides, flotation is used, the support of which is water; and in the case of secondary oxidized and sulphides, leaching is used, which is carried out by using sulfuric acid.

There are also other technologies for obtaining copper through the use of bacteria. The latter make the process cleaner and reduce production costs.

The phases of the production process of copper from oxides are: extraction, crushing, leaching and electrolytic precipitation. In the case of sulphide minerals they are: extraction, crushing, flotation (concentration), smelting, refining and molding, and electro refining.

In conclusion, copper is very important since it has various uses such as copper is used for water supply pipes and that this metal is also used in refrigerators and air conditioning systems. Copper is a metal very resistant to rust, it has been used to make containers that contain water since ancient times 

(Outlet, 2018)