Technological conditions and kinetics of leaching copper from complex copper oxide ore

The kinetic behavior of leaching copper from low grade copper oxide ore was investigated. The effects of leaching temperature, H2SO4 concentration, particle size of crude ore and agitation rate on the leaching efficiency of copper were also evaluated. And the kinetic equations of the leaching process were obtained. The results show that the leaching process can be described with a reaction model of shrinking core. The reaction can be divided into three stages. The first stage is the dissolution of free copper oxide and copper oxide wrapped by hematite-limonite ore. At this stage, the leaching efficiency is very fast （leaching efficiency is larger than 60%）. The second stage is the leaching of diffiuent copper oxides, whose apparent activation energy is 43.26 kJ/mol. During this process, the chemical reaction is the control step, and the reaction order of H2SO4 is 0.433 84. The third stage is the leaching of copper oxide wrapped by hematite-limonite and silicate ore with apparent activation energy of 16.08 kJ/mol, which belongs to the mixed control.

Techniques of copper recovery from Mexican copper oxide ore

Mexican copper ore is a mixed ore containing mainly copper oxide and some copper sulfide that responds well to flotation. The joint techniques of flotation and leaching were studied. The results indicate that an ore containing 19.01% copper could be obtained at a recovery ratio of 35.02% by using sodium sulfide and butyl xanthate flotation. Over 83.33% of the copper oxide can be recovered from the railings by leaching in suitable conditions, such as 1 h stirring at a temperature around 25 ℃with a mixing speed of S00 r/min, an H2SO4 concentration of 1.0 mol/L and a mass ratio of the ore-slurry-liquid to solid （mL/ms） of 3. The overall yield of refined ore after flotation and leaching is over 89.18% of the copper, which is much better than sole flotation or leaching. A copper product containing more than 99.9% copper was obtained by using the process： flotation-agitation leaching- solvent extraction-electro-winning.

Mechanochemical sulfidization of a mixed oxide-sulphide copper ore by co-grinding with sulfur and its effect on the flotation efficiency

Mechanochemical sulfidization of a mixed sulfide/oxide copper ore by co-grinding with sulfur and additives including Mg(NO3)2 and Fe(NO3)3 salts and iron,aluminum and magnesium powders was investigated for the first time.Also,the influence of sulfidization during the wet-milling process was examined on the separation efficiency and recovery of copper in detail.The results demonstrated that co-grinding with sulfur solely had the best flotation performance at the value of 0.5 wt.%and it was attributed to the possible existence of S\\O bonding on copper oxides surfaces.In addition,adding magnesium nitrate salt,magnesium powder,iron nitrate salt and aluminum powder as additive associated with 0.5 wt%sulfur into ball milling caused the flotation improvement at the amounts of 0.2 wt%,0.2 wt%,0.5 wt%and 0.5 wt%,respectively.Also,the effect of grinding time and sulfidization pH with 0.5 wt%sulfur solely was determined and pH s of 7.5 to 8.5 gave the best results.The highest recovery(75.76%)and separation efficiency(63.44%)were achieved at pH of 7.5 and 8.5,respectively.

Effect of temperature on leaching behavior of copper minerals with different occurrence states in complex copper oxide ores

The effect of temperature on leaching behavior of copper minerals with different occurrence states in complex copper oxide ores was carried out by phase analysis means of XRD, optical microscopy and SEM-EDS. The results indicated that at ambient temperature, the easily leached copper oxide minerals were completely dissolved, while the bonded copper minerals were insoluble. At lukewarm temperature of 40℃, it was mainly the dissolution of copper in isomorphism state. With increasing temperature to 60℃, the copper leaching rate in the adsorbed state was significantly accelerated. In addition, when the temperature increased to 80℃, the isomorphic copper was completely leached, leaving 11.2% adsorbed copper un-leached. However, the copper in feldspar-quartz-copper-iron colloid state was not dissolved throughout the leaching process. Overall, the leaching rates of copper in different copper minerals decreased in the order: malachite, pseudo-malachite > chrysocolla > copper-bearing chlorite > copper-bearing muscovite > copper-bearing biotite > copper-bearing limonite > feldspar-quartz-copper-iron colloid.

Recovery prediction of copper oxide ore column leaching by hybrid neural genetic algorithm

The artificial neural network(ANN)and hybrid of artificial neural network and genetic algorithm(GANN)were appliedto predict the optimized conditions of column leaching of copper oxide ore with relations of input and output data.The leachingexperiments were performed in three columns with the heights of2,4and6m and in particle size of<25.4and<50.8mm.Theeffects of different operating parameters such as column height,particle size,acid flow rate and leaching time were studied tooptimize the conditions to achieve the maximum recovery of copper using column leaching in pilot scale.It was found that therecovery increased with increasing the acid flow rate and leaching time and decreasing particle size and column height.Theefficiency of GANN and ANN algorithms was compared with each other.The results showed that GANN is more efficient than ANNin predicting copper recovery.The proposed model can be used to predict the Cu recovery with a reasonable error.

Bioleaching of copper oxide ore by P seudomonas aeruginosa

Bioleaching is an environmentally friendly method for extraction of metal from ores. In this study, bioleaching of copper oxide ore by Pseudomonas aeruginosa was investigated. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a heterotrophic bactermm that can produce various organic acids in an appropriate culture medium, and these acids can operate as leaching agents. The parameters, such as particle size, glucose percentage in the culture medium, bioleaching time, and solid/liquid ratio were optimized. Optimum bioleaching conditions were found as follows： particle size of 150-177 μm, glucose percentage of 6%, bioleaching time of 8 d, and solid/liquid ratio of 1：80. Under these conditions, 53% of copper was extracted.

SYNERGISTIC ACTIVATION OF CHELATING AGENT ON XANTHATE DURING THE FLOTATION OF REFRACTORY COPPER OXIDIZED ORES

For realizing the effective flotation of refractory copper ox-idized ores and developing the activation-flotation theory , the influences of nine different organic chelating agents on xanthate collection pcnver and its adsorption characteristics ivere studied in the flotation of malachite and chrysocolla representatively selected by means of XPS,IR, absorbed quanti-ty measurements and flotation tests.For easily-dissolved malachite flotation , a small amount of chelating agent can obviously enhance xanthate collecting power and make malachite floated easily , and so reduces the consumption of xanthate. For hard-dis-晄olved chrysocolla, chelating agent is able to increase its recovery to 90% , but the chelating agent consumption is high. Chelating agent and xanthate can produce synergistic adsorptions, which follmv Freundlich's adsorption equation on malachite and Chrysocolla surfaces. The high chemical activity of chelating agent and its synergistic activation on xanthate are the key to improving xanthate collection poiver. The synergistic activation of chelat-ing agent on xanthate on melachite surfaces is clearly stronger than on chrysocolla surfaces. According to experimental results, it can be thought that the synergistic activation results from the synergistic complexation of chelating agent and xanthate with copper ions to form biligand-tribasic co-ordination complex.

Leaching of chromite ore in concentrated KOH by catalytic oxidation using CuO as catalyst

CuO was used as a catalyst in the concentrated KOH solution to enhance the leaching of chromium from the chromite ore.The impacts of temperature,KOH-to-chromite ore mass ratio,CuO-to-chromite ore mass ratio,and gas flow rate on the chromiumleaching rate were investigated.The results indicated that CuO played an important role in improving the chromium leaching rate.The leaching rate reached98%after leaching for6h when CuO was applied,whereas it was only60.8%without CuO under thesame reaction conditions:temperature230°C,KOH-to-ore mass ratio6:1,stirring speed700r/min,gas flow rate1L/min.Accordingto the kinetics study,the catalytic oxidation was controlled by surface chemical reaction and the activation energy was calculated tobe15.79kJ/mol when the temperature was above230°C.In contrast,without CuO,the rate-determining step was external diffusionand the apparent activation energy was38.01kJ/mol.

Effect of Desliming on Flotation Response of Kansanshi Mixed Copper Ore

The Kansanshi mixed copper sulfide-oxide ore contains significant proportions of fine material manifesting in a variety of processing challenges. This paper presents the work which was carried out to evaluate the efficacy of desliming in improving the flotation response of the ore. Two modes of desliming were investigated, namely;sieving and elutriation after which the deslimed material was subjected to Kansanshi standard laboratory flotation conditions. The minimum copper feed grade for the mixed copper ore was 0.5% Total Copper (TCu). The outcome of this work has shown that desliming improves the flotation response of the Kansanshi mixed copper ore. At a rougher copper concentrate grade of 8%, copper metal recoveries obtained with desliming were in excess of 70% compared to 58% achieved with baseline tests without desliming. It was further observed that desliming resulted in improved flotation rates for the sulfide minerals. For a flotation time of 3 minutes, recoveries of 69% and 74% were obtained with elutriation and sieving respectively compared to 58% recovery for baseline tests. From the same results it was also evident that, of the two modes of desliming investigated, sieving yielded better performance than elutriation.

螯合活化剂对孔雀石的活化及其对氧化铜矿石浮选应用

对采自云南红河、兰坪、东川及湖北大冶铜绿山的四个孔雀石样品,进行了分别使用D2(2、5——二硫酚——1、3、4——硫代二唑)及硫化钠作活化剂,黄药作捕收剂的单矿物浮选试验。研究了不同矿区孔雀石浮选基本行为间的差别、D2药剂作用规律及适用范围。对于以D2作活化剂,用黄药从氧化矿石中直接浮选未经预先硫化的氧化铜矿物新工艺的实践经验及结果也作了报道。