Copper Minerals

Copper minerals are found throughout the earth's crust. They occur in both sedimentary and igneous rocks. The outer 10 km of the crust contains 33 g of copper for every tonne of rock and in some places, millions of years ago, deposited copper in one location. It is these areas which are mined today because they contain enough copper to make mining profitable. As well as the valuable copper there is much waste rock (called gangue) which has to be removed. 

Copper Mining

The following gives an overview of how copper is extracted from its ore and converted into pure metal.

Mining
The ore is removed from the ground in either open pit or underground mines. Underground - sinking a vertical shaft into the earth to reach the copper ore and driving horizontal tunnels into the ore.  Open-pit - 90% of ore is mined using the open pit method. Ores near the surface can be quarried after removal of the surface layers.

The ore
An ore is a rock that contains enough metal to make it worthwhile extracting. 

Grinding
The ore is crushed, then ground into powder.

Concentrating
The ore is enriched using a process called froth flotation. Unwanted material (called gangue) sinks to the bottom and is removed.

Roasting
This is where the chemical reactions start. The powdered, enriched ore is heated in air between 500°C and 700°C to remove some sulphur and dry the ore, which is still a solid called calcine.

Smelting with fluxes
A flux is a substance which is added to the ore to make it melt more easily. The solid calcine is heated to 1200°C and melts. Some impurities are removed forming a matte (a mixture of liquid copper and iron sulphide).

Conversion of matte
Air is blown into the liquid matte forming blister copper, so called because the gas bubbles trapped in the solid form blisters on the surface.

Anode casting
The blister is cast into anodes for electrolysis.

Electrolytic refining
The copper is purified to 99.99% by electrolysis.