Hydrometallurgical recovery of metal values
AssigneeUop LLC
InventorLaurence G. Stevens
Life of this patent
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Abstract
In the hydrometallurgical recovery of metal values from ores and the like in which a metal bearing source is reduced in the presence of at least one additive at temperatures ranging from about 500.degree. to about 900.degree. C. and thereafter extracted, the improvement of said process comprises pretreating a portion of process tails from a preceding run with the additive prior to the reducing roast. The additive which is used to pretreat the minor portion of the feed stock may comprise that which is recovered from the roaster offgas and admixed with a portion of the tail stream from the extraction step.
Claims6
A process for the recovery of metal values from a metal bearing source containing a metal selected from the group consisting of nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese, which comprises the steps of:
- 1. pretreating a minor portion of said metal bearing source with a hydrogen halide treated tail stream formed as hereinafter set forth and then commingling the pretreated minor portion with the remainder of the metal bearing source;
- 2. roasting the resultant mixture in a reducing atmosphere at a temperature of from about 550.degree. to about 900.degree. C.;
- 3. cooling the roasted material and then extracting the same with an ammonium carbonate leaching solution;
- 4. scrubbing the hydrogen halide-containing offgas from roasting step (2) with a slurry of at least a portion of the leached tails from step (3) to transfer hydrogen halide from the offgas to the slurry;
- and
- 5. supplying resultant hydrogen halide-containing slurry from step (4) to step (1) as said hydrogen halide treated tail stream.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.