Abstract
The object of the study was oxidized copper ore of the Zhezkazgan deposit and technical sulfur, oil industry waste. The oxidized copper ore – sulfur system was studied to explore the possibility of sulfidation of oxidized copper ores with sulfur. Oxidized copper ore is involved in production in view of depleted sulfide copper minerals. Many studies focuses on the sulfidation of oxidized copper minerals in order to improve the efficiency of copper extraction from this type of feed. It is also important to study the sulfidation of oxidized copper ores with technical sulfur as an oil industry waste. The thermodynamic evaluation of metal oxides sulfidation using hydrogen sulfide, sulfur or other sulfur-containing compounds is of interest in terms of preparing metallurgical raw materials for enrichment. The use of technical sulfur also solves the oil industry problems. Thermal and X-ray diffraction analyzes were used to study the oxidized copper ore – sulfur system. Thermal analysis was performed on the Q-1000/D derivatograph (F. Paulik, J. Paulik and L. Erdey system) manufactured by MOM, Hungary. Due to the peculiar thermal behavior of sulfur (low melting and boiling points) included in the charge composition (low interaction temperature) the heating temperature of a number of samples was limited to 20~650 °C. Heating was performed in a dynamic mode with calcined Al2O3 as a reference substance and a test charge of 100 mg. It was found that sulfur reacts with oxidized copper minerals at the non-isothermal heating of the reaction mixture in the temperature range 160–350 °С, and the sulfidation reaction is accompanied by the release of heat and sulfur dioxide. The results of X-ray diffraction analysis of products after thermal interaction confirm the copper sulfide formation.