<p>Copper extraction has mainly been via electrometallurgy or pyrometallurgy which are energy consuming. The study focuses on the copper extraction from hematite dominated copper ore deposit at Akiri town in Nasarawa state, Nigeria using economical hydrometallurgical processes for the recovery of copper at high purity. The experiments carried out in this work includes: chemical and mineralogical characterizations of the raw ore and comminution. Froth flotation using full factorial design was employed, sulphuric acid leaching of the best flotation concentrate obtained using optimal leaching conditions, then cementation of the pregnant solution obtained to recover copper and purification of the cemented copper to obtain elemental copper powder of high purity. Therefore, the characterization of the ore revealed that the copper ore contains chalcopyrite, covellite and cuprite as the copper minerals present. The gangue minerals present in the ore were hematite and quartz majorly. The major oxides present in the ore are hematite, (76.04 wt%), copper oxide, (11.3 wt%) and silicon oxide, (5.3 wt%) making Fe, Cu and Si the major elements while Al, Mg, S, Ti, Mn, Ca, C, and K are minor elements in the ore. However, the froth flotation separation gave a grade of 5.40% Cu at copper recovery of 89.34% froth product and minimized iron content of 14.38% Fe. Similarly, the recovered copper metal powder with 97.21% purity, 0.785% Fe and 0.3288% Si at 99.8% copper recovery was obtained from the leached solution of the flotation concentrate dissolution. The activation energy estimated was 18.13&#xa0;kJ mol^− 1 value indicates that the rate of cementation is diffusion-controlled process. Finally, the study concluded that the Akiri hematite laden copper ore was successfully upgraded and extracted using a combination of froth flotation technique and hydrometallurgy.</p>