Potential metallurgical treatment of copper concentrates with high arsenic contents

摘要

This paper investigates a potential method for arsenic removal from copper concentrates using hypochlorite leaching. The problems concerning pyrometallurgical processing of copper concentrates with high arsenic contents are discussed. A possible solution to the problem by leaching of natural enargite crystals with sodium hypochlorite under alkaline oxidizing conditions, with enargite converted into crystalline CuO and the soluble arsenic forming AsO_4~(3-), was experimentally investigated and results are presented. Kinetic parameters were calculated for enargite leaching, using a model-free approach. Advanced isoconversional methods were used to investigate the dependence of activation energy (E_a) on reaction rate (a).