EXTRACTING
Copper Sulfide Ore
Copper Sulfide Ore

About 80% of the world’s copper-from-ore originates in Cu-Fe-S ores, such as chalcopyrite (CuFeS2) and chalcocite (Cu2S). The concentration of these minerals in an ore body is low. Typical copper ores contain from 0.5% Cu (open pit mines) to 1 or 2% Cu (underground mines). Cu-Fe-S minerals are not easily dissolved by aqueous solutions, so the vast majority of copper extraction from these minerals is pyro-metallurgy.  (Excerpt from Extractive Metallurgy of Copper)

Recommended Process:
  • Copper Blast Furnace Smelting

    For copper metallurgy,Metalcess supplies low investment copper blast furnace for Copper ore/copper sulfide ore/copper-nickel sulfide ore smelting to produce copper anode.

  • Copper Bottom Blowing Furnace Smelting & Converting

    Metalcess provide Bottom blowing furnace (SKS) treating copper oxide/sulfide and copper/nickel mixing concentrates/ore. It is also adaptable to waste material including copper scrap, brass and electronic waste etc.

  • Copper Side Blowing Furnace Smelting & Converting

    Metalcess provide Side Blowing Furnace (Vanyukov furnace) treating copper oxide/sulfide and copper/nickel mixing concentrates/ore. It is also adaptable to waste material including copper scrap, brass and electronic waste etc..

  • Copper Electrorefining Plant Design & Configuration

    Copper electrorefining mainly produce LME Cu-CATH-1 copper cathode and byproduct anode slime from copper anode. Metalcess develops mini scale copper ER from 1T/d copper ER system with modular design/easy installation and saving installation instruction cost.

Copper Oxide Ore
Copper Oxide Ore

Copper also occurs to a lesser extent in oxidized minerals (carbonates, oxides, hydroxy-silicates, sulfates). Copper metal is usually produced from these minerals by leaching, solvent extraction, and electrowinning. These processes are also used to treat chalcocite (Cu2S).


The other 20% is obtained through hydro-metallurgy. (Excerpt from Extractive Metallurgy of Copper)

Recommended Process:
  • Copper Ore Hydrometallurgy and Pressure Leaching

    Metalcess provides copper ore leaching, PLS solvent extraction and copper electro-winning.Specially treating copper sulfide ore by pressure leaching to get elemental S instead of H2SO4 acid.

  • Copper Sulphate Crystallization and MVR

    MVR (Mechanical Vapor Recompression) evaporation technology for copper sulphate crystal is noticeably advantageous in energy conservation, reducing energy cost by 3/4 compared with conventional two-effect evaporator. The key point is that the secondary steam can be recycled after enthalpy increase by mechanical compression, greatly decreasing the demand of fresh steam and process water.

Lead Oxide/ Carbonate Ore
Lead Oxide/ Carbonate Ore
Lead oxide ore, mainly in the form of cerussite and anglesite, is originated from primary lead sulfide ore which gradually changed its property under efflorescence and carbonate salt environment. In a lead deposit, lead oxide and lead sulfide usually is detected at the upper layer and lower layer separately. The common mined lead oxide ore includes Cerussite/ Anglesite/ Crocolte/ Pyromorphlte/ Mimetlte/ Uanadinite/ Wulfenlte. Lead oxide concentrate contains less sulfur and can be directly smelted in blast furnace without sintering. 
Recommended Process:
  • Lead Blast Furnace Smelting

    For lead metallurgy,Metalcess supplies high efficient blast furnace for lead paste from lead acid battery, lead oxide/sulfide ore, lead concentrate smelting to produce lead bullion.

  • Lead Bullion Fire-refining and Electrorefining Process

    Metalcess provides not only lead Parkes & Harris Process and electro-refining process line but also high efficient solution for zinc removal from lead bullion.

Lead Sulfide Ore
Lead Sulfide Ore

Lead & zinc metals are closely attached to each other and usually mined together from primary ore, for example, Galena (PbS) & sphalerite (ZnS) are associated in native ore. As the main formation of lead sulfide, galena is widely spread all over the world. The other source of lead sulfide are boulangerite/ jamesonite/ bournonite. Extraction of lead metal is almost fully pyrometallurgy-based process as given below.

Recommended Process:
  • Lead Blast Furnace Smelting

    For lead metallurgy,Metalcess supplies high efficient blast furnace for lead paste from lead acid battery, lead oxide/sulfide ore, lead concentrate smelting to produce lead bullion.

  • Lead Bottom-blowing Furnace Oxidation & Reduction

    Metalcess provide Bottom blowing furnace (SKS) treating lead oxide/sulfide and lead/zinc mixing concentrates/ore. It is also adaptable to lead containing zinc leaching residue and waste material including lead paste from lead acid battery etc..

  • Lead Side-blowing Furnace Oxidation & Reduction

    Metalcess provide Side Blowing (Vanyukov) Furnace smelting lead oxide/sulfide ore and lead/zinc mixing concentrates/ore, high lead residue from zinc leaching and lead paste from lead acid battery recycling.

  • Lead Bullion Fire-refining and Electrorefining Process

    Metalcess provides not only lead Parkes & Harris Process and electro-refining process line but also high efficient solution for zinc removal from lead bullion.

Zinc Oxide/Sulfide Ore
Zinc Oxide/Sulfide Ore

Zinc and lead are closely bonded with each other and co-exists in raw ore. For example, galena (PbS) and sphalerite (ZnS) are detected as associated minerals in natural mines. Most of zinc metal production are from zinc sulfide ore, which mainly exists in the form of sphalerite, maramatite and wurtzite. 

Zinc oxides are found in smithsonite, hemimorphite, willemite and hyrdozincite. 

Recommended Process:
  • Zinc Blast Furnace Smelting

    For zinc metallurgy,Metalcess supplies low investment blast furnace for treating the residue from zinc concentrate leaching and Crude Zinc Oxide(C.Z.O.) from EAF dust to produce lead bullion and crude zinc at the same time.

  • Zinc Leaching and Purification

    Metalcess provides ammonium leaching, acid leaching, zinc pressure leaching to process zinc oxide ore, crude zinc oxide, zinc EAF flue dust, zinc sulfide ore/concentrate to produce zinc cathode, LME zinc ingot and zinc oxide powder.

  • Zinc Pressure Leaching (ZPL)

    Zinc pressure leaching (ZPL) treats zinc concentrate directly in the autoclave where specific temperature and oxygen partial pressure is given to leach zinc and generates zinc sulfate solution while sulfur, lead and iron remain in the residue (leaching residue).

  • Jarosite/Goethite Precipitation for Iron Removal

    Metalcess recommends using goethite precipitation for iron removal in zinc leaching solution and converting goethite precipitation to standard iron ore by flash magnetization roasting furnace.

  • Zinc Electrowinning Plant Design & Configuration

    Zinc electrowinning mainly produce LME Zn-CATH-1 zinc cathode from ZnSO4 or Ammonium electrolyte. Metalcess develops mini scale Zinc EW from 1T/d Zinc ER system with modular design/easy installation and saving installation instruction cost.

Tin Ore/ Cassiterite
Tin Ore/ Cassiterite

About 50 kinds of tin minerals are known by human. Tin ore mainly exists as cassiterite, other commonly-seen tin minerals includes stannite, franckeite, herzenbergite, incaite, cylindrite, nordenskildine and thoreaulite, etc. The average tin ore grade is less than 1%, alluvial tin grading 0.01%-0.1%. However, the tin concentrate grade of 40% is required, meaning the enrichment of hundreds or thousands times. Targeting at the refractory tin ore, low grade tin concentrate is obtained and it has to be further extracted by special metallurgy process.

Reduction smelting is the dominant process to extract tin metal from tin concentrate. Metalcess suggest electrical furnace for tin smelting because of its relatively low cost, short process and smart recycling of iron.

Recommended Process:
  • Extraction of Tin/ Stannum

    Metalcess provides Tin smelting process through EAF smelting, centrifugal filter removing iron & arsenic and electrical-heating crystallizer removing lead & bismuth to get 99.99% Tin.

  • Crude Tin Refining

    Smelting of tin/stannum concentrate cannot produce high quality tin directly but crude tin containing several impurities. The refining of crude tin is to remove these impurities and recover valuable metals like indium, bismuth and copper, which helps to reduce production cost to a large extent.

Nickel-Cobalt Sulfide Ore
Nickel-Cobalt Sulfide Ore
Nickel Sulfide Ore
Nickel Sulfide Ore
Laterite-nickel ore
Laterite-nickel ore
Magnesite/Canallite
Magnesite/Canallite
Dolomite
Dolomite
Gold ore/Silver ore/PGM
Gold ore/Silver ore/PGM
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  • Tel:
    +86 731 89902290 Galis Guo
  • Mobile:
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  • Email:
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