A study of copper recovery from copper‐contaminated sludge with ferrite and selective leaching processes

The purpose of this study was to develop an effective resource recovery and leached residue stabilization process for copper‐contaminated sludge. To this end, a treatment procedure utilizing ferrite and selective leaching processes was developed. The XRD examination of ferrite complex revealed the crystalline phases to be mainly Fe3O4, CuO, and 6CuO·Cu2O. A selective leaching process was followed to recover the copper content of the ferrite complex. To promote the dissolution percentage of copper and repress that of iron, additional 0.5 N sulfuric acid was added at intervals to the suspension in the second step of the selective leaching process. The purpose of this operation was to return the suspension pH back to 3 to promote the dissolution of copper oxide and repress the dissolution of iron. Finally, the heavy metal (i.e., Cu, Pb, Cr, and Cd) dissolution of the above residue was examined with toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) testing and all met the regulatory standard.