New Process For Copper Anode Slime Treatment At The Hitachi Smelter & Refinery

INTRODUCTION Hitachi Refinery of Nippon Mining Co., Ltd. was constructed in 1911. The refinery began early to recover by-product metals and to manufacture copper products. Today, the refinery recovers gold, silver, selenium, platinum and palladium as by-products of the copper refining process and manufactures copper powder, copper foil, wire bars and chemicals for plating. In 1969, the capacity of the Hitachi Refinery reached 6,000 tons/month. (T/M). Because, at that time, the forecast was for the demand for copper in Japan to increase, planning for the expansion of the Hitachi and Saganoseki refineries was begun. A new 10,000 T/M capacity tank house, a new electrolyte purification plant and a enlarged anode slime treatment plant were planned for the Hitachi Refinery. Construction at the Hitachi Refinery began in December, 1970, and was completed in April, 1974. The development of new machines and processes has resulted in an efficient refinery with a production capacity of 16,000 TIM. This paper is a report on the new anode slime treatment plant at the Hitachi Refinery, and especially on the copper removal process in that plant, the Ferric Leaching Process.