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Title: RECOVERY OF GERMANIUM FROM COPPER SLAG USING SILICOTHERMIC PROCESS

RECOVERY OF GERMANIUM FROM COPPER SLAG USING SILICOTHERMIC PROCESS

PlumX Article Metrics by Elsevier
Precious Maubane; Michel Kalenga Wa Kalenga
10.5593/sgem2024v/4.2/s17.18
10.5593/sgem2024v/4.2
1314-2704
978-619-7603-77-4
English
24
4.2
•    Prof. DSc. Oleksandr Trofymchuk, UKRAINE •    Prof. Dr. hab. oec. Baiba Rivza, LATVIA
Recycling, Waste Management, and Circular Economy
The depletion of primary raw materials and the demand in High Tech has played a big role in finding new ways of getting raw materials including recycling. Germanium being a semi-conductor currently in high demand is being sourced from secondary materials. The purpose of this project was to recover Germanium from copper slag in the presence of pure silicon using the carbothermic reduction process. The experiment was designed using Minitab software with Taguchi as the tool for statistical analysis and to design the experiment. The working temperature was kept constant at 1350 degrees Celsius and the mass of silicon, slag basicity and residence time in the furnace were investigated with the response being recovery of germanium to determine the optimum conditions under which there is a high recovery of Germanium as per the conducted experiments. The findings of this experiment are that the conditions that yield a high recovery of Germanium are 0,008 mass of pure silicon, 0,8 basicity and the optimum time was found to be 120 minutes. In this investigation targeted to meet the sustainable research and development goal of implementation of circular economy by virtue of recycling metallurgical waste that goal. Moreover, from the carbothermic reduction cobalt and copper were recovered consequently. The optimum conditions were tested using the main effects, interaction, and sensitivity to noise ratio plots all from Taguchi.
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[9] Kayembe,J.N.; Wa Kalenga, M.K. and Nyembwe, D.K. Impact of Ferrosilicon and gypsum on the Recovery of copper from copper slag, Proceedings METAL 2019, 24-29 May, Brno, Czech Republic, pp. 1738-1746, 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.37904/metal.2019.923
The authors would like to acknowledge STL (Societe Du Traitement du Terril de Lubumbashi/STL) from the Democratic Republic of Congo for providing the samples and their support to the project.

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https://doi.org/10.5593/sgem2024v/4.2/s17.18
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RECOVERY OF GERMANIUM FROM COPPER SLAG USING SILICOTHERMIC PROCESS
Proceedings of 24th International Multidisciplinary Scientific GeoConference SGEM 2024
24th International Multidisciplinary Scientific GeoConference SGEM 2024, 27 - 30 November, 2024
Proceedings Paper
STEF92 Technology
International Multidisciplinary Scientific GeoConference Surveying Geology and Mining Ecology Management, SGEM
SWS Scholarly Society; Acad Sci Czech Republ; Latvian Acad Sci; Polish Acad Sci; Russian Acad Sci; Serbian Acad Sci and Arts; Natl Acad Sci Ukraine; Natl Acad Sci Armenia; Sci Council Japan; European Acad Sci, Arts and Letters; Acad Fine Arts Zagreb Croatia; Croatian Acad Sci and Arts; Acad Sci Moldova; Montenegrin Acad Sci and Arts; Georgian Acad Sci; Acad Fine Arts and Design Bratislava; Russian Acad Arts; Turkish Acad Sci.
125-132
27 - 30 November, 2024
website
10110
Pure silicon, Germanium, recovery, copper, slag

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