Copper anode slimes usually consists of copper, selenium, nickel, tellurium, silver, gold, and trace amount of platinum group metals, with the Te content typically being about 14 wt, and. Also, the electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity and ductility are only slightly altered from pure copper. Essentially all tellurium (Te), an element used in solar panels and other high technology devices, is recovered as a byproduct of copper mining. At present, anode slimes from electrolytic copper refineries are the primary source of tellurium, which is the main source of the world tellurium supply. The addition of tellurium to copper results in short, clean chips and allows cutting speeds of five times those used with pure copper, with much less wear on tool life. Through the production processes in our copper smelters, we ensure a continuous supply of tellurium metal and tellurium dioxide. Tellurium, a rare element, is widely used in metallurgy, chemical industry, electronics, aerospace, medical and other fields (). Tellurium copper’s resistance to hydrogen embrittlement and high conductivity make it a good choice for electrical applications, especially those which require extensive machining. The tellurium-copper alloy material has both excellent cutting performance and excellent electrical and thermal conductivity, and at the same time has corrosion. Statistically, approximately 90 of tellurium is commercially produced from the copper anode slimes from electrolytic refining of copper, while the rest is extracted as a byproduct of the mining of lead, gold and zinc(Xu et al., 2020).
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