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Material World
Mineral · CuFeS2

Chalcopyrite

A brassy copper-iron sulfide, and the principal ore of copper.

Ore

Chalcopyrite is a brass-yellow sulfide of copper and iron, and the source of most of the world's copper. It is not a rich ore by appearance — a typical modern deposit contains well under one percent copper — but it is abundant and widely distributed, which matters more.

How to identify it

Brassy yellow, often tarnishing to an iridescent purple-blue. Softer than pyrite, which it superficially resembles: a knife blade will scratch chalcopyrite and will not scratch pyrite. The streak is greenish black, which distinguishes both from gold, whose streak is golden.

Extraction

Crushed and concentrated by froth flotation, which exploits the fact that sulfide surfaces can be made water-repellent while the surrounding rock cannot. The concentrate is then smelted, converted and electrolytically refined.

Medium confidence Weak evidence

How we know: checked recently · only one source, so there is nothing to cross-check it against · stated directly by the source.

How this connects

Where a connection has been confirmed by an outside reference, that reference is named beside it.

contains

is an ore of

  • Copper — element · the principal copper ore worldwide Wikidata

is an input to

  • Smelting — process · roasted to drive off sulfur, then reduced to copper
  • Roasting — process · a copper sulfide; roasting drives off the sulfur that would otherwise prevent reduction
  • Froth flotation — process · the archetypal flotation feed — porphyry copper ore runs well under one per cent copper and leaves as a concentrate of twenty-five or more
  • Solvent extraction and electrowinning — process · in the low-grade and oxidised ores that flotation cannot economically treat, with bacteria oxidising the sulfide into a form the acid can attack

is a source for

  • Bronze — alloy · via smelted copper

is found at

is commonly confused with

  • Gold — element · brassy sulfides have been mistaken for gold for as long as both have been mined

is a component of

  • Skarn — rock · the copper of the proximal skarns, closest to the intrusion that supplied the fluid
  • Porphyry copper deposit — deposit type · the primary copper sulfide, dispersed through a stockwork of hairline fractures at a fraction of a per cent

is an alternative to

  • Malachite — mineral · as copper ore, and the choice decides the plant rather than the feed: chalcopyrite is a sulfide and goes to flotation and a smelter, malachite is a carbonate that dissolves in acid and goes to leaching and electrowinning. Most porphyry deposits have both, the oxidised one on top
  • Azurite — mineral · the same substitution as malachite and for the same reason — an oxidised copper carbonate leached rather than smelted, from the weathered cap of a sulfide deposit

is used in

  • Mining and quarrying — industry · the principal copper ore, and the reason froth flotation was developed

Sources

  • Material World
    Our own writing
  • Wikidata
    Wikimedia Foundation · Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (public domain dedication)
  • Crystallography Open Database
    COD Advisory Board / Vilnius University · CC0 — contributors place data in the public domain

Questions this page answers

Where it comes from, and what it becomes

Follow Chalcopyrite back to what it starts as, and forward into what it becomes. Each step is a documented one — a real route material takes, not a chain of inference.

Downstream — what it becomes

  • Chalcopyrite → is an input to (roasted to drive off sulfur, then reduced to copper) → Smelting → produces (as blister copper, refined electrolytically afterwards) → Copper → is a component of → Bronze → is used to make (cast in a two-piece mould with a core, which is what bronze does better than the copper it replaced) → Bronze socketed axe → is associated with → Bronze Age complete chain
  • Chalcopyrite → is an input to (in the low-grade and oxidised ores that flotation cannot economically treat, with bacteria oxidising the sulfide into a form the acid can attack) → Solvent extraction and electrowinning → produces (roughly a fifth of world production, plated straight from solution at cathode purity without ever being melted) → Copper → is a component of → Bronze → is used to make (cast in a two-piece mould with a core, which is what bronze does better than the copper it replaced) → Bronze socketed axe → is associated with → Bronze Age complete chain
  • Chalcopyrite → is an ore of (the principal copper ore worldwide) → Copper → is a component of → Bronze → is used to make (cast in a two-piece mould with a core, which is what bronze does better than the copper it replaced) → Bronze socketed axe → is associated with → Bronze Age complete chain
  • Chalcopyrite → is a source for (via smelted copper) → Bronze → is used to make (cast in a two-piece mould with a core, which is what bronze does better than the copper it replaced) → Bronze socketed axe → is associated with → Bronze Age complete chain
  • Chalcopyrite → is an input to (the archetypal flotation feed — porphyry copper ore runs well under one per cent copper and leaves as a concentrate of twenty-five or more) → Froth flotation → is used in (the process that made low-grade disseminated sulfide deposits economic, and therefore made the modern copper industry) → Mining and quarrying → is associated with (steam pumping allowed mines below the water table, which is what made deep coal possible) → Industrial Revolution complete chain
  • Chalcopyrite → is used in (the principal copper ore, and the reason froth flotation was developed) → Mining and quarrying → is associated with (steam pumping allowed mines below the water table, which is what made deep coal possible) → Industrial Revolution complete chain

These are the most distinct paths onward. Chalcopyrite ends up in others besides.