Role of oxygen and ammonium ions in silver leaching with thiosulfate–ammonia–cupric ions

The dissolution of silver with thiosulfate and copper ions was studied in a batch-stirred reactor at 25 °C in the absence and presence of various ammonium ions and oxygen concentrations in the aqueous solution. Leaching silver with 4 mg L-1oxygen in the aqueous solution requires high concentration of ammonium and thiosulfate ions. High silver dissolution is achieved at pH of high cupric tetraamine concentration, around pH 9.8, but a high degradation of thiosulfate ions is resulted from their oxidation by the presence of oxygen. When the oxygen concentration is below 1 mg L-1, dissolved silver thiosulfate species are fairly stable and the degradation of thiosulfate ions in the aqueous solution is low. Under these conditions,high silver dissolution is attained using low thiosulfate concentration. At the oxygen concentration of 4 mg L-1,dissolved silver thiosulfate species precipitate out of the aqueous solution significantly affecting silver dissolution.Precipitation of dissolved silver thiosulfate species occurs because of oxidation of the thiosulfate bonding to the silver.

Ag recovery from copper anode slime by acid leaching at atmospheric pressure to synthesize silver nanoparticles

In this paper, recovery of silver from anode slime of Sarcheshmeh copper complex in lran and subsequent synthesis of silver nanoparticles from leaching solution is investigated. Sarcheshmeh anode slime is mainly consisted ofCu, Ag, Pb and Se. Amount of Ag in the considered anode slime was 5.4% （by weight）. The goal was to recover as much as possible Ag from anode slime at atmospheric pressure to synthesize Ag nanoparticles. Therefore, acid leaching was used for this purpose. The anode slime was leached with sulfuric and nitric acid from room to 90 ~C at different acid concentrations and the run which yielded the most recovery of Ag was selected for Ag nanoparticles synthesis. At this condition, Cu, Pb and Se are lea- ched as well as Ag. To separate Ag from leach solution HCI was added and silver was precipitated as AgCl which were then dissolved by ammonia solution. The Ag nanoparticles are synthesized from this solution by chemical reduction method by aid of sodium borohydride in the presence of PVP and PEG as stabilizers. The synthesized Ag nanoparticles showed a peak of 394 nm in UV-vis spectrum and TEM images showed a rather uniform Ag nanoparticles of 12 nm.

Leaching kinetics in cyanide media of Ag contained in the industrial mining-metallurgical wastes in the state of Hidalgo, Mexico

The leaching kinetics in cyanide media of the silver contained in the Dos Carlos waste tailings at the City of Pachuca de Soto, Hidalgo State, Mexico were carried out. The used material contained the following chemical composition: 56 10-6of Ag, 0.6 10 6of Au and 70.43%(by weight) of SiO2; 7.032%(by weight) of Al2O3; 2.69%(by weight) of Fe; 0.46%(by weight) of Mn; 3.98%(by weight) of K2O; 3.34%(by weight) of CaO; 2.50%(by weight) of Na2O; 0.04%(by weight) of Zn; 0.026%(by weight) of Pb. The mineralogical phases present were the following: Silica, albite, argentite, berlinite, orthoclase, potassium jarosite, and natrojarosite. In the leaching kinetics in cyanide media, and under the studied conditions,the effect of the CN concentration on the reaction rate has no effect on the whole process of alkaline cyanidation, of which the reaction order is n 0. Temperature has an effect on the cyanidation rate of the reaction, with an activation energy of 47.9 KJ/mol. At the same time, when the particle size decreases there is an increase in the reaction rate, which is inversely proportional to the particle diameter; when increasing the NaOH concentration there is an increase in the reaction rate Kexp, with a reaction order(n) of 0.215 under the studied ranges.