Abstract
India's first Cu refinery was started in 1965 at the Works of Indian Copper. The slime treatment processes were started thereafter and were confined to decopperization, denickelization and finally to deselenization. In 1975, the Precious Metal Recovery Plant was commissioned with company's process and engineering knowhow with deselenized slime as the feed material for Dore smelting. The precious metal recovery was very low; due to low precious metal and high base metal and Te content in the slime. Necessity was, therefore, felt to enrich the precious metal content in the Dore feed by eliminating/minimizing the base metal and Te contents in the slime prior to smelting. The developed process was commercialized after actual plant trials. The complete slime treatment route now being adopted at Hindustan Copper is presented.--AA