Abstract
Total pressure oxidation (TPOX) is widely outreached leaching practice for base metals from sulfide minerals , wherein high temperature (T ~ 200 °C) and oxygen pressure (pO2 ~ 25 bar) are required. These aggressive conditions intensify the oxygen mass transfer , and therefore facilitate metal dissolution. However, challenging-cum-negative aspects of such practice are energy and material intensive requirements and high oxygen demand. Thus, the present study explores the novel emulsified medium for enhancement of oxygen mass transfer , which assists faster metal dissolution at significantly lower temperature and pressure condition. It is possible to achieve quantitative dissolution (>95%) of Cu, Ni and Co from mixed sulfide minerals at T ~ 95 °C and pO2 ~ 2 bar using an emulsion of 2.5% (v/v) n-Hexadecane in dilute sulfuric acid . In addition, n-Hexadecane was found to be inert, stable and immiscible in a pressurized leaching system, thus can be easily separated and recycled in subsequent leaching stages. Thus, this study offers an energy efficient route for low temperature -pressure leaching of sulfides.
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Acknowledgements
The author would like to thanks i-PSG committee for sanctioning project OLP-0274. The authors also would like to thank Director, CSIR-NML, for granting the permission to publish this work.
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Sinha, S., Mishra, D., Shekhar, S., Agrawal, A., Sahu, K.K. (2018). Emulsion Mediated Low Temperature Pressure Leaching of Base Metals from Mixed Sulfide Minerals Through Enhanced Oxygen Mass Transfer. In: Davis, B., et al. Extraction 2018. The Minerals, Metals & Materials Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95022-8_137
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95022-8_137
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