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Selective Tin precipitation, leaving copper in Sulfate solution (5 replies and 3 comments)
Hello Andrew,
You mean your 'ore' is 40% Cu (and it is oxide)? or you have material of X% Copper with 40% Cu oxide and 60% sulfides?
What is your head assay?
Its an industrial residue. Its 40% contained copper. 7% tin. Its an oxide. Dissolves nicely in sulfuric.
Hi Andrew, I don't know for sure about the chemistry of this but try Copper Cementation https://www.911metallurgist.com/cyanidation/selective-tin-precipitaion-leaving-copper-in-sulf/ + https://www.911metallurgist.com/blog/metallurgical-testing-lpf-process as the Tin may stay in solution if the scrap/sponge iron is specific to copper only.
Contact https://www.911metallurgist.com/profile/Jorge+Quintanilla on Copper Cementation, he should know more about it than I.
https://www.911metallurgist.com/blog/agitated-copper-leaching-ore#copper_precipitation-cementation
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Hi David,
thanks for the reply. I know the cementation works well. I can drop the tin with zinc after the copper comes out. Its just that i want to leave the copper in solution to put through the SX/EW plant, due to the operation i have to leave the tin residue behind in the filter when i pump the solution out.
Oh good. Cu, Sn, maybe this is just the order of things... Maybe somebody else has a way around mother nature. Otherwise you'd need to acid leach you copper again before SX... hmm.
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Yeah, theoretically i could drop tin sulfide by adding sulfide and leave copper in there, as there is a great enough difference in solubility, between tin sulfide and copper sulfide. I just thought there would be a product of some sort which i could add.
This is a sort of chemistry-set process separate copper and tin salts. You probably will need to experiment to optimize it.
Dissolve the copper and tin containing materials in acid. Your choice. Sulfuric would be my first one, as industrial sulfuric acid is plentiful and thus cheap. Neutralize with Na or K hydroxide, add more hydroxide until precipitation stops. Perhaps you will need to filter to separate the acid solution of metal salts from whatever insoluble gunk occurs together with the metals. This precipitate is a mixture of the insoluble hydroxides of tin, copper, and I suppose mercury too. Filter or otherwise concentrate the hydroxides. Then add an excess of ammonium hydroxide. The copper forms a very stable complex with the NH3 in equilibrium with the NH4OH in solution. The tin does not complex very well with ammonia, so it should remain behind. Filter to separate the SnOH from the (NH3)xCu solution. Without a reference handy right now, I'm not sure what will happen to the mercury, but I doubt that it will form sufficiently stable ammine complexes and so will remain in the ppt with tin hydroxide. On a large scale, perhaps anhydrous ammonia gas should be used in place of the ammonium hydroxide solution (aka 'Household Ammonia') since that will keep your volumes smaller. Handling the ammonia vapor will be a pollution issue. Surely other industries have solved this.
I don't have it with me now, or I'd look it up, but my introductory college chemistry textbook has tables of complexation constants and solubility constants of various metals. You can probably find more in chemistry compendiums, eg. the CRC handbook. Good Luck.
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Hello all,
I have a 40% contained copper oxide with 7% tin contained in it.
And about 20 ppm Hg. What is the best way to put the copper into sulfuric acid solution and leave the Tin behind as a solid. And what to do with the mercury?