Process for the treatment or removal of impurities in a hydrometallurgical extraction process
AssigneeCominco Engineering Services Ltd.
InventorDavid L. Jones
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A Process for the treatment or removal of impurities, such as arsenic, antimony or bismuth, generated as by-products during smelting and refining of copper concentrates, comprises subjecting the by-products to pressure oxidation along with a copper concentrate in a hydrometallurgical copper extraction process or the treatment of impurities when present in a concentrate by subjecting the concentrate to a hydrometallurgical extraction process.
Claims21
A method of treating a by-product from a copper smelting or refining process, which by-product contains an element selected from the group consisting of As, Sb, Bi and Hg, comprising the steps of:
- subjecting a copper ore or concentrate also containing iron and a source of bisulphate or sulphate ions to pressure oxidation at an elevated temperature and pressure in the presence of oxygen and an acidic solution containing halide ions;
- and
- subjecting said by-product to the pressure oxidation together with said ore or concentrate to obtain a resulting pressure oxidation slurry containing copper and a compound of said element.
A method of treating a copper ore or concentrate also containing fluoride comprising the steps of:
- subjecting the ore or concentrate along with a source of bisulphate or sulphate ions to pressure oxidation at an elevated temperature and pressure in the presence of oxygen and an acidic solution containing halide ions, the halide ions being selected from the group consisting of chloride ions and bromide ions, to obtain a resulting pressure oxidation slurry;
- subjecting the slurry to a liquid/solid separation step to obtain a resulting pressure oxidation filtrate and a solid residue;
- and
- continuously recycling the pressure oxidation filtrate to the pressure oxidation, thereby to solubilize the fluoride up to a saturation concentration in the pressure oxidation filtrate, to establish an equilibrium condition whereby no further nett dissolution of fluoride takes place and substantially all fluoride in the ore or concentrate goes into the solid residue.
A method of dispensing with an impurity contained in a copper ore or concentrate, which impurity is in the form of an element selected from the group consisting of As, Sb, Bi and Hg, comprising the steps of:
- subjecting a copper ore or concentrate also containing iron and a source of bisulphate or sulphate ions to pressure oxidation at an elevated temperature and pressure in the presence of oxygen and an acidic solution containing halide ions;
- and
- subjecting said by-product to the pressure oxidation together with said ore or concentrate to obtain a resulting pressure oxidation slurry containing copper and a compound of said element.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.