Acknowledgment to the Reviewers of Journal of Environmental & Earth Sciences in 2025
2026-02-06
Research on Improvement of Carbon-Free Self Heating Smelting Technology in Copper Smelting and Synergistic Reduction of Carbon Emissions along with Flue Gas Pollutants
Authors
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Xiaolin Yu
Sihui Fuchun Environmental Protection Equipment Co., Ltd., Sihui 526000, China
Sihui Fuchun Copper Materials Factory, Sihui 526000, China
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30564/jees.v8i7.13325Abstract
Carbon-free self-heating (autothermal) smelting has emerged as a promising route to decarbonize primary copper pyrometallurgy while improving control of flue-gas pollutants. In this review, recent advances in exploring technology routes and system integrations to permit a stable autothermal regime with minimal routine fossil-carbon feeds in various stages of preparing concentrate, smelting, converting, and anode/fire-refining interfaces are synthesized. The heat-balance aspects needed to allow the self-heating of a carbon-free furnace are discussed in the context of sulfide oxidation heat release, moisture and gangue penalties, matte slag equilibria, and under conditions of variability in feed controllability. With further elaboration of these principles, the review categorizes the following oxygen-enriched and oxygen-blown intensification methods, families of flash and bath smelting, and integrated smelting-converting ideas, with greater emphasis on the fact that oxygen potential and thermal profile are key to process stability, refractory durability, slag family, and energy efficiency. The main emphasis is on the so-called synergistic co-reduction process of CO2 with decreased off-gassing volume and composition, which influence SO2 capture, NOx pathways, particle formation, and the distribution of semi-volatile/toxic species (e.g., As and Hg) into dust, acid, or residues. The review indicates that the net emissions are sensitive to boundaries because of electricity and oxygen production, and this identifies significant obstacles that include heat-balance resilience, corrosion, and dust deposition in the heat recovery systems, impurity recycle loops, and cross-media burden shifting. Lastly, coupled modeling, long-duration demonstration with harmonized key performance indicators (KPIs), integrated impurity management, and robust measurement, reporting, and verification are suggested as the priority research requirements to enable scale-up.
Keywords:
Copper Smelting; Autothermal Self-Heating; Decarbonization; Oxygen Enrichment; Multi-Pollutant ControlReferences
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Yu, X. (2026). Research on Improvement of Carbon-Free Self Heating Smelting Technology in Copper Smelting and Synergistic Reduction of Carbon Emissions along with Flue Gas Pollutants. Journal of Environmental & Earth Sciences, 8(7), 236–260. https://doi.org/10.30564/jees.v8i7.13325
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Copyright © 2026 Xiaolin Yu
This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.
