Vitrification of Copper Flotation Waste

Abstract

In the present work, the vitrification of flotation waste from Turkish copper production plant was studied. Two batches were obtained by mixing the flotation waste with blast furnace slag and zeolite tuff, and with glass cullet, sand and limestone, respectively. The melting was carried out at 1400°C for 30-40 min. One of the glasses showed a high crystallization trend and was used to obtain glass-ceramics by bulk crystallization; the other composition was characterised by low crystallization ability and was used to obtain a granite- like sintered material. The crystallization was evaluated by DTA while the crystal phases formed were identified by XRD. The structure of the final materials was observed by optical and scanning electron microscopy.