Abstract

More than 50 years ago, a relationship between a metal, copper, and a type of chemicals, oximes, began. This was caused by the copper industry, which needed of a process which fulfilled the requirements for a process allowing the treatment of copper oxidized ores, unsuitable for their treatment by means of pyrometallurgical processing. The process was, and it is, a sequence of steps, as shown in Figure 1. In resume, by means of three sequential steps: leaching-solvent extraction-electrowinning, copper cathode is produced from low grade oxidized copper ores. The process success was that the exiting solution of one step fed the next step, and the exiting solution from the step fed the previous one. That is, a near perfect closed process.