BOLEO COBALT ELECTROWINNING DEVELOPMENT

摘要

The Boleo process of Minera y Metalurgica del Boleo recovers cobalt from a complex oxide and sulfide ore. Following the recovery of copper and zinc products, cobalt is recovered by solvent extraction and electrowinning. The electrowinning process is conducted in a diaphragm cell in a sulfate medium. Cobalt is deposited on a coated stainless steel mandrel cathode with exposed circles to allow plating as disk shaped deposits over the surface of the cathode which can be easily stripped after 5-7 days of deposition. The bench-scale development work on cobalt electrowinning is presented, including selection of plating conditions and additives to control the cobalt disk morphology and pitting behaviour. The cobalt deposit internal stress and the conductivities of CoSO_4-Na_2SO_4-H_2SO_4 system were measured.