RESUMO
Sulfide copper mineral, typically Chalcopyrite (CuFeS2), is one of the most common minerals for producing metallic copper via the pyrometallurgical process. Generally, flotation tailings are produced as a byproduct of flotation and still consist of unârecovered copper. In addition, it is expected that more tailings will be produced in the coming years due to the increased exploration of lowâgrade copper ores. Therefore, this research aims to develop a copper recovery process from flotation tailings using highâpressure leaching (HPL) followed by solvent extraction. Over 94.4% copper was dissolved from the sample (CuFeS2 as main copper mineral) by HPL in a H2O media in the presence of pyrite, whereas the iron was coâdissolved with copper according to an equation given as CCuâ¯=â¯38.40â¯×â¯CFe. To avoid coâdissolved iron giving a negative effect on the subsequent process of electrowinning, solvent extraction was conducted on the pregnant leach solution for improving copper concentration. The result showed that 91.3% copper was recovered in a stripped solution and 98.6% iron was removed under the optimal extraction conditions. As a result, 86.2% of copper was recovered from the concentrate of flotation tailings by a proposed HPLâsolvent extraction process.