Atmospheric leaching of copper from oxide-sulfide ore using sulfuric acid

Abstract

High flexibility of hydrometallurgical operations as well as economic and environmental acceptability, offer the opportunity to selectively obtain metals in the early stages of the processing. This enables the application of hydrometallurgical operations in processing of ores which, due to their complex composition or low copper content, are not suitable for pyrometallurgical treatment. In contrast to sulfide minerals, leaching of oxide ores does not requires presence of oxidizing agent. This paper presents the results of influence of temperature on the leaching degree of copper from pyritechalcopyrite concentrate by sulfuric acid solution at atmospheric pressure. According to the obtained results, it was found that an increase in the leaching temperature significantly contributes to the increase in the leaching efficiency, where after 6 hours of leaching at 40°C achieved efficiency was 90.6%.

Keywords

• copper oxide
• chalcopyrite
• atmospheric leaching
• sulfuric acid