Method of copper concentrate sulfation and leaching
AssigneeClean Resources Pte. Ltd
InventorAbraham Fouad Jalbout
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Abstract
The method of recovering copper from sulfide ores with copper and iron, comprises the steps of reacting, in a reaction vessel, a copper-containing sulfide ore with sulfur dioxide gas to form elemental sulfur, an iron oxide and a copper sulfide, separating the solids comprising the iron oxide and copper sulfate from a liquid phase of the reaction mixture, leaching the dried solids with an aqueous solution comprising water or dilute sulfuric acid and solubilizing the copper sulfate, and recovering copper from the solubilized copper sulfate.
Claims14
A method of recovering copper from sulfide ores having copper and iron, the method comprising:
- reacting, in a reaction vessel, copper-containing sulfide ore with sulfuric acid and oxygen gas;
- separating solids formed during the reaction from liquids formed during the reaction;
- washing the solids with water to yield a solution comprising water and dissolved solids, and a solid portion undissolved copper-containing sulfide ore;
- subjecting the solution comprising water and dissolved solids to a solvent extraction and electro-winning (SX-EW) process to isolate copper from the solution;
- isolating the copper from the solution to form a copper-deficient solution comprising iron and water;
- precipitating, using a precipitation process, the iron from the copper-deficient solution and separating the water from the precipitated iron;
- and
- introducing the separated water into the solvent extraction and electro-winning (SX-EW) process.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.