Back to results
US 4,729,881 AGranted
Hydrometallurgical process for the production of beryllium
AssigneeFMC Corporation
InventorWilliam C. Copenhafer
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Loading patent…
Loading patent…
AssigneeFMC Corporation
InventorWilliam C. Copenhafer
Estimating the term…
Beryllium is efficiently recovered from silicate ores in a hydrometallurgical, single solvent, process which avoids the complexities, high costs and hazards ofpyrolytic, fluorination and acid leach methods, by contacting the ore in a closed reactor at elevated temperature and autogenous pressure with a concentrated caustic solution and lime or lime hydrate to form a slurry containing dissolved beryllium, reducing the pressure to about one atmosphere and the temperature to below the boiling point of the caustic solution, separating by-product solids to leave a pregnant leach liquor, diluting and digesting the leach liquor to precipitate the beryllium and to leave a caustic mother liquor, and separating the beryllium. The caustic mother liquor can be recycled to the ore contacting step in a closed loop version of the process.
A hydrometallurgical process for producing solid beryllium hydroxide from an ore containing a beryllium silicate mineral, which comprises:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.