Ammonia leaching of copper smelter dust and precipitation as copper sulphide

The effect of ammonia on the leaching of copper smelter dust and copper precipitation from these solutions as sulphide using sulfur and sulfur dioxide was studied. The precipitation was done in ammoniacal media because this solution produced more satisfactory results at room temperature that a sulphuric media. A solid was precipitated containing 60 % of copper of the dust smelter. The other waste generated contained around 80 % of the arsenic of the original copper smelter dust. Based on the preliminary results obtained in this work it will propose a procedure for the recovery of copper as sulphide from copper smelter dust with parallel confinement of arsenic.