Miniplant Project to Evaluate Alumina Recovery Processes
Bureau of Mines forecasts of the aluminum situation show that U.S. demand for the metal in the 1960’s increased at a average annual rate of 9.4 percent, with a projected long-term growth rate of 6.5 percent, higher than any other metal. Conversely, the Nation is becoming increasingly dependent on imports for its aluminum needs. Of […]
Submerged Vat Leaching VS Trickle Leaching
Leaching is defined as a form of extraction in which a valuable constituent is removed from a solid body by mass transfer to a solution which, for the purpose of this discussion, is considered to be an aqueous medium. Historically, leaching has been applied to the recovery and purification of many elements. The leaching of copper […]
Solvent Extraction of Uranium using a Gas-Bubble Extractor
Solvent extraction is widely used in hydrometallurgical processing of uranium for purification and upgrading leach solutions prior to recovery of metal values. Conventional solvent extraction processing utilizes mixer-settler units to achieve mixing of the aqueous and organic phases. Use of mixer-settlers permits continuous treatment of feed, but the processing rate is restricted by the time […]
How to Scale-up a Hydrometallurgical Leach Recovery Process
Several hydrometallurgical leach processes have been recently proposed for the recovery of copper from copper concentrates. These include the Cymet Process of Cypress Metallurgical Processes Corporation, the Arbiter Process of the Anaconda Company, and the Treadwell Process of Treadwell Engineering Company. These processes and similar processes for recovery of other minerals, have several phenomenological similarities […]
Copper Precipitation Process
The system provides the following functions: (1) assays for copper and iron from ten process streams on a continuous rotating basis, (2) directs hardware to automatically flush and start up cone units based on measured performance variables, (3) provides continuous plant operating data and calculates metallurgical averages as well as production figures for shift and […]
Chemical Oxidation of Cyanide by Ozone
Before the work was started, a review was made of possible oxidative and disposal processes, including: evaporation, ponding, lime-sulfur treatment, acidification-aeration, ion exchange, biological oxidation, permanganate oxidation, dichromate oxidation, hydrogen peroxide oxidation, electrolytic oxidation; but it was obvious that only ozone and alkaline chlorination had any significant potential for this application. After selecting ozone as […]
Nickel Cementation onto Iron
Nickel ores may be classified into two major categories : sulphide ores, and oxidized lateritic ores, these latter containing nearly 80% of the known reserves of the metal. Unfortunately, no economically viable process for the concentration of nickel from low-grade deposits has yet been developed, and so only the high grade ores are able to be […]
Bismuth Dissolution at Smelter
The processing of residues derived from various operations in the mining and metallurgical industry for by-product recovery is becoming more prevalent. A principal target for by-product recovery is flue dust produced by conventional smelting operations. Flue dust from zinc smelters has been processed for many years for the recovery of cadmium. The cadmium recovery technique […]
Uranium In Situ Leaching its Advantages – Computer Simulation
In Situ leaching for the recovery of uranium from low grade sandstone deposits is one of the newest technological advances in the mineral industry. It is rapidly developing into a commercially feasible mining system which has economic, environmental, and social advantages over conventional mining systems. Because of the current uranium shortage, development of In Situ […]
Solvent Extraction Economics
The equipment which is used in solvent extraction plants for contacting the organic and aqueous phases and separating the same is varied. Most common to the industry is the mixer-settler unit which, in itself, can be of varied design; but many new innovations in contacting and separating equipment have been recently introduced or are now […]