Hydrometallurgy: Leaching in Heap, Vat, CIL, CIP, Merrill–Crowe, SX Solvent Extraction

Hydrometallurgy: Leaching in Heap, Vat, CIL, CIP, Merrill–Crowe, SX Solvent Extraction

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Extraction of arsenic (11 replies)

Marshal Meru
8 years ago
Marshal Meru 8 years ago

I need information about the SX extraction of arsenic. Actual Operations: Location, reagents, configuration, production, performance, old operations, why stop working.

(unknown)
8 years ago
(unknown) 8 years ago

CRL (Copper Refiners Ltd) in Townsville Australia used TBP (50% in ShellSol 2046) to extract As (V) from copper tank house electrolyte to produce bicupric arsenate as a saleable by-product to the timber preservation and insect.

Bob Mathias
8 years ago
Bob Mathias 8 years ago

Check the following papers in the proceedings of ISEC 2002

Afif Demirkiran, A. Ruth Wright and Nevill M. Rice,

The Extraction of Arsenic (V) and Sulphuric Acid From Acidic Sulphate Media by Tri-n-butyl Phosphate (TBP) in Shellsol A Or T: I - An Equilibrium Study of the Extracted Species,

Proc. International Solvent Extraction Conference, ISEC2002, Cape Town South Africa, March 2002, (K.C. Sole, P.M. Cole, J.S. Preston and D.J. Robinson, Eds.), C. van Rensburg Publications, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2002, pp 884-889

Afif Demirkiran, and Nevill Matson Rice,

The Extraction of Arsenic (V) from Copper Refinery Electrolytes with Tri-n-butyl Phosphate (TBP):II – Flow sheet Development,

Proc. International Solvent Extraction Conference, ISEC2002, Cape Town South Africa, March 2002, (K.C. Sole, P.M. Cole, J.S. Preston and D.J. Robinson, Eds.), C. van Rensburg Publications, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2002, pp 890-895.

(unknown)
8 years ago
(unknown) 8 years ago

In which step you want to eliminate (or recover as by-product)? In leaching step it is common that concentrate is leached by sodium carbonate. Then we use Fe or Ca to Precipitate As. In copper refinery majority of approximately 50-60% of arsenic goes to slime and approximately 20% is remove in liberators. Remained 20% As should be deleted. In this step selection of ARU OrSx for removal of As can be used.

(unknown)
8 years ago
(unknown) 8 years ago

As inventor of the SX As by TBP, I would like to give some comments.

The problem with the As started in our Olen Cu refinery TH.

Next to As, also Ni is accumulating in the electrolyte. Ni could be removed by concentration of the bleed from the TH. The concentration was done in two steps. The first step went to 500gr.H2SO4/l. The second step went to 1100gr/l. black acid and NiSO4.H20 was crystallized. We took the concentrated liquor from the first step. As we found out that Kd As is strongly influenced by the H2SO4 concentration. The advantage was also that we had to treat a smaller aqueous flow. We could extract the As by 100%TBP leading to TBP.H2SO4.H3AsO4.xH20. After a scrubbing step, H3AsO4 is stripped by H20.

The pregnant strip solution H3AsO4 (>90gr.As/l.) can either be treated by SO2 in order to precipitate pure As2O3 (sold) or with Fe as FeAsO4. (Dump)

There was no reason to stop the plant for technical reasons.

Hope this gives some more indications about our SX As process.

(unknown)
8 years ago
(unknown) 8 years ago

Do you know if this technique (extraction to As whit TBP) is applied in any industrial plant currently.

(unknown)
8 years ago
(unknown) 8 years ago

TBP has been reported as used for extracting arsenic from copper sulphate solutions and it was tested also at some copper refineries in Chile in the early 80´s. However the big mystery was how organic reagent affected the normal smoothing agents in copper ER. Extractions were good but built up was not possible to measure in such a short time. It was safer to bleed electrolyte to the oxide leaching adjacent operation and recover copper via EW while the impurities (arsenic and others) remain at the heap.

Paul Morrow
8 years ago
Paul Morrow 8 years ago

Check the references in the ISEC2002 publications. There should be one referring to Mount Isa mines operational plant in Townsville, Queensland, Australia. I think the key to the success of that TBP process was their ability to sell copper arsenate from the strip product as a wood preservative. However one can also produce arsenic oxide. Metallurgic Hoboken in Belgium ran a successful process too.

(unknown)
8 years ago
(unknown) 8 years ago

Yes, I read the papers you indicate. This solution is very easy, but is not very good, any other solutions?

(unknown)
8 years ago
(unknown) 8 years ago

My apologies, I had only recently noted this discussion. As the Supt Electrolyte Purification, I operated the As SX plant at CRL, Townsville described above by Peter / Neville and similar to that by UM as described by Achille. The description and history given is quite accurate. It was possible to operate without affecting performance of refining smoothing reagents with some careful treatment of raffinate.

Zander Barcalow
8 years ago
Zander Barcalow 8 years ago

Please guide me about standard test method of copper solvent extraction lab test our ore is chalcocite.

Maya Rothman
8 years ago
Maya Rothman 8 years ago

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