Recovery of copper, nickel and cobalt from acidic pressure leaching solutions of low-grade sulfide flotation concentrates

Recovery of copper, nickel and cobalt from the acidic pressure leaching solutions of Jinbaoshan (YN Province, PRC) low-grade sulfide flotation concentrates was investigated. The proposed technique includes four major steps: (1) the acidity adjustment of the acidic pressure leaching solutions; (2) solvent extraction (SX) separation of copper by organic reagent XD5640, and then stripped from the loaded organic phase by H2SO4 solution for copper recovery; then (3) iron in raffinates after copper extracting is selectively removed by high-temperature hydrolysis precipitation in an autoclave; and lastly (4) nickel and cobalt are selectively precipitated by Na2S from the final solutions after removing iron. The experimental results for treating 1 L acidic leaching solutions per batch by this new technique were reported, and some evaluation and further comparisons with previous investigations were also carried out. It was reported that the total percent recovery of Cu could reach 95% or more, and that of Ni and Co were all more than 99%. In the processing, the percent removal of impurities, such as Fe, Mg and Ca, were all also near to 99%.