Life Cycle Assessment of Metallic Copper Produced by the Pyrometallurgical Technology of China

Abstract

With the rapid development of industry in China, China has become the largest producer of refined copper as well as the largest consumer of copper in the world. In order to provide the support for decreasing the environmental impact of the copper pyrometallurgy of China, the life cycle assessment methodology was carried out in this study to identify and analyze the typical processes’ environmental load of refined copper production from ‘cradle-to-gate’ perspective. The results showed that the most serious environmental impact of copper pyrometallurgy was abiotic depletion potential and human toxicity. The abiotic depletion potential mainly comes from the copper ore mining, for this reason, increasing the use of renewable copper is an effective means to alleviate environmental load of our country copper pyrometallurgy industry. Meanwhile, reducing the direct and indirect discharge of poisonous and harmful elements (e.g. heavy metals) from the copper ore mining stage and the copper smelting process could decrease the human health damage efficiently.