September 18, 2025 Dataset Open Access

Data publication: Hydrometallurgical separation of iron and copper from copper industrial dust waste and recovery of copper as copper oxide

Dhiman, Soniya; Ghosh, Aratrika; Saravanan, Venkat; Jain, Rohan

Copper is extensively used across industries and its demand continues to grow. The global consumption and its demand have steadily increased in recent times. To meet the growing demand for copper, the importance of recycling copper from metallurgical waste should be addressed. Copper industrial dust is the major secondary source of copper. The present study is aimed to recover copper from copper industrial dust using hydrometallurgical route. The copper industrial dust contained 293.9 mg/g copper and 355.3 mg/g iron. Leaching was carried out with different inorganic acids, HCl, H2SO4 and HNO3. Based on the leaching results, a two-step process was performed for selective recovery of copper. In the first step, H2SO4 (1 mol/L) was used for the selective leaching of iron (> 99.5 %). More than 99 % of copper was leached in second step using 4 mol/L HNO3. Furthermore, copper was recovered as copper oxide from leach liquor through precipitation followed by calcinations. Further characterization of the synthesized copper oxide was performed through XRD, FE-SEM and EDX analyses. The proposed method provides a solution for the treatment of industrial wastes as well as offers an opportunity to recover valuable metals.