Studies of the recovery and separation of sulfur and iron from leached residue by the chlorine leaching of primary copper minerals

摘要

Copper hydrometallurgy is recently focused because of its higher cost performances and less of environmental problems and some attempts to applicate it for primary copper minerals have been started worldwide. Intec process is one of the hydrometallurgical processes used chlorine leach (NaCl-Na Br) where Cu is produced in the form of dendritic copper and S and Fe are wasted as mixture of fine elemental sulfur and fine FeOOH mainly. The objectives of this study are to investigate economical process of recovery and separation of sulfur and iron from leached residue. Some innovations such as pre-treatment of residue with sulfuric acid, column cell and so on could successfully improve the floatability of elemental sulfur coated by fine FeOOH, and show the possibility to adapt the flotation method to treat the residue.