Abstracthis literature review was prepared in order to determine the state of the art with respect to the vacuum refining of copper. There have been numerous reported laboratory investigations of copper refining by vacuum treatment since the 1940s. Most studies have been carried out with the aim of eliminating deleterious impurities, such as arsenic, antimony, bismuth, lead, sulphur, and oxygen, from copper to levels appropriate to marketable grades, thereby improving the quality of the copper produced. It is interesting to note that the majority of work in this area has been carried out by Japanese and Soviet researchers: Japanese authors have generally tried to explain their results by means of kinetic or thermodynamic analyses, whereas the Soviet ones have merely given experimental results. This review contains three sections. In the first, the theory of vacuum treatment is discussed. The second presents information currently available (to 1980) on vacuum refining and is divided into three subsections, based on the type of copper treated, namely: (i) treatment of blister copper (or crude copper); (ii) treatment of anode copper and/or cathode copper; and (iii) treatment of copper matte. Finally, a patent survey has been carried out, which is reported in the third section.MST/54