Thanks for joining me today for this discussion on emew advanced liberators. Let's start by looking at a simplified copper refining process flow diagram. Copper Concentrate is fed to the smelting process where fire-refined copper is produced. Next onto anode casting, where 99% anode copper is formed followed by electrorefining of copper to produce LME grade copper cathode. But we aren’t done there, the refinery bleed is then sent to copper liberators to control the copper concentration and impurities in the process. It is at this step, where we will focus our time today.

Topics: electrowinning, mining, emew, Refining, Refinery Optimization

Electrowinning is known as an electrolytic process because it involves electrodes submerged into an electrolyte.An electrolyte is simply a conductive solution formed by dissolving positively and negatively charged ions. 

Topics: electrowinning, emew, Refinery Optimization

Objectives of advanced green technologies

Advanced green technologies (AGTs) refer to a group of practical methodologies and materials based, among others, on non-toxic chemical processes, clean energies, and environmental monitoring to slow down or correct the negative impact induced by human activities.

Topics: Wastewater Treatment

Electrowinning is the process of ‘winning’ dissolved metals from solution by passing an electrical current through an electrolyte containing said metal.  The fundamentals of the electrowinning process have been discussed in a previous blog.  The relative ease of recovery depends on the electrochemical potential of the target metal relative to the Standard Hydrogen Electrode (SHE) which is defined by the following reaction:

Topics: electrowinning, nickel, emew, Refinery Optimization

Topics: electrowinning, nickel, emew, Refinery Optimization

Where is copper mined and refined?

Taking a closer look at worldwide copper production statistics we found that some of the biggest copper-producing countries do not necessarily refine the copper at home. The reasons for this depend on various factors. We wanted to find out how much of copper is not actually refined in the same countries from which it was mined.

Topics: copper, Small Mine Production

Lab tests such as this are an ideal way to demonstrate the recovery capabilities of emew for a variety of electrolytes and feed materials. In most cases, these tests can be done right at your site so you can see the results for yourself.

This particular test is to demonstrate the recovery of copper cathode from a copper sulphate feed solution.  We can test a range of feed materials to recover not only copper, but also silver, nickel, tin and others.  This copper sulphate solution was prepared ahead of time and roughly 3L transferred to the feed tank.

Topics: copper, electrowinning, emew, General

What pops into your mind when you see the word, "liberation"?

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The word liberation comes from the latin word, liberatus, which literally means "to set free" or "to deliver", and can easily apply to myriad of different topics from politics and religion to science and industry.

Particularly in the copper industry, the word liberation applies to the act of freeing copper specifically from refinery bleed electrolyte. The process that starts with mining and carries on through smelting and electrorefining is complex with many process operations.  Let's take a closer look at the story of 'liberating copper'.  

On average, mined ore contains about 1% copper and in order to recover this copper from the rock it requires several physical and chemical processing and refining steps in order to produce market ready copper metal.

Topics: copper, nickel, Refining, Refinery Optimization

A common question we get here at emewCorporation is:  “What is the power consumption of emew electrowinning technology”.  This is a very important question because power consumption is one of most significant costs involved in electrowinning, regardless of whether it is conventional or emew. 

Topics: copper, emew, General

Nickel and Nickel Powders

Nickel is a lustrous silvery-white metal with a tint of gold. While nickel is the 5 ^th most common element on earth, most of it is inaccessible in the Earth’s core. Nickel and nickel powder are widely used in hundreds of thousands of products, in most cases as alloys with other metals, such as chromium. Nickel alloys are used to create stainless steel and heat-resisting steel and provide some great anti-corrosion capabilities.

Topics: metal recycling, Advanced Metal Powders