COPPER SULPHATE

Copper(II) sulfate, the chemical compound with the formula CuSO4. Copper sulphate, blue stone, blue vitriol are all common names for penta hydrated cupric sulphate, CuS04.5H20, which is the best known and the most widely used of the copper salts. Indeed it is often the starting raw material for the production of many of the other copper salts. Today the world's consumption is around 250,000 tons per annum of which it is estimated that approximately three-quarters are used in agriculture, principally as a fungicide.

We produce high quality copper sulphate with low heavy metal content in our factory in Romania via SC Cuprichem SRL, in Zlatna Park Industial, Alba Iulia. Our copper sulphate is suitable for animal feed and agricultural use since lead content is around 30 ppm, cadmium and arsenic contents are lover than 5 ppm. Technical grade copper sulphate is also available with low impurities. In our process no copper ore uses as raw material but only copper scrap from electrical cables with 99.99% copper.

Manufacture in the production of copper sulphate virgin copper is seldom, if ever, used as the starting raw material. Copper ores are used in countries where these are mined. For the bulk of the world's production nonferrous scrap is the general source. The scrap is refined and the molten metal poured into water to produce roughly spherical porous pieces about the size of marbles which are termed "shot". This shot is dissolved in dilute sulphuric acid in the presence of air to produce a hot saturated liquor which, if the traditional large crystals of copper sulphate are required, is allowed to cool slowly in large cooling vats into which strips of lead are hung to provide a surface for the crystals to grow on. If the granulated (snow) crystal grades are desired, the cooling process is accelerated by agitating the liquor in water cooled vessels.

Copper sulphate is a very versatile chemical with as extensive a range of uses in industry as it has in agriculture. Its principal employment is in agriculture. Copper sulphate is a fungicide used to control bacterial and fungal diseases of fruit, vegetable, nut and field crops. Some of the diseases that are controlled by this fungicide include mildew, leaf spots, blights and apple scab. It is used in combination with lime and water as a protective fungicide, referred to as Bordeaux mixture, for leaf application and seed treatment. It is also used as an algaecide, an herbicide in irrigation and municipal water treatment systems, and as a molluscicide, a material used to repel and kill slugs and snails. Copper sulphate is a naturally-occurring inorganic salt and copper is an essential trace element in plant and animal nutrition. It is available in the following formulations: dusts, wettable powders, and fluid concentrates. Up to a generation or so ago about its only uses in industry were as a mordant for dyeing and for electroplating, but today it is being employed in many industrial processes. The synthetic fibre industry has found an application for it in the production of their raw material. The metal industry uses large quantities of copper sulphate as an electrolyte in copper refining, for copper coating steel wire prior to wire drawing and in various copper plating processes. The mining industry employs it as an activator in the concentration by froth flotation of lead, zinc, cobalt and gold ores. The printing trade takes it as an electrolyte in the production of electrotype and as an etching agent for process engraving. The paint industry uses it in anti-fouling paints and it plays a part in the colouring of glass. Indeed, today there is hardly an industry which does not have some small use for copper sulphate.