In this study, leaching of reverberatory furnace dust at Sarcheshmeh was investigated in H2SO4-O-3 medium. Response surface methodology based on central composite face-centered design (RSM-CCF) was applied to optimize the operating parameters. The optimal conditions to achieve the principle objectives of maximizing copper dissolution and minimizing iron dissolution from dust were identified to be a temperature of 30 degrees C, a leaching time of 3 h, an initial pH of 0.5, a pulp density of 20%, and an ozone flow rate of 1 g/h. Under the optimum conditions, the copper and iron concentrations in the leaching solution were found to be 27.11 and 0.90 g/L, respectively. The results showed that selective copper extraction from the dust could be achieved using sulfuric acid and ozone. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.