Cleaning experiments of a copper matte smelting slag from the water-jacket furnace was undertaken by direct reduction in a laboratory-scale electric furnace. The effects of coal-to-slag ratio, w, and the reduction time, t, were considered for two different coal/slag mixing procedures. In the first procedure, metallurgical coal was added to the molten slag, whereas in the second procedure, coal was premixed with the solid slag before charging into the furnace. The recovery of heavy metals (Cu, Co), and the fuming of Pb and Zn were investigated. Contamination of the metal phase by iron and the acidity index of the final slag were analysed as these may impede the economical viability of the process. The lower w value of 2.56% yielded a recovery rate of less than 60% for copper and less than 50% for cobalt, and around 70% for zinc. However, increasing w to 5% allowed the recovery of 70-90% for Cu, Co and Zn simultaneously after 30-60 min reduction of the molten slag. After reduction, the cleaned slags contained only small amounts of copper and cobalt (<0.4 wt%). Fuming of lead and zinc was efficient as the %Pb of the residual slag dropped to levels lower than 0.04% after 30 min of reduction. Ninety percent of the lead was removed from the initial slag and collected in the dusts. The zinc content of the cleaned slags quickly dropped to between 1 and 3 wt% from the initial 8.2% after 30 min reduction for w value of 5 and after 60 min reduction for w value of 2.56. The dusts contained about 60% Zn and 10% Pb. Recovery of lead from fuming of the slag was higher than 90% in all the experimental conditions considered in this study. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.