TY - JOUR
T1 - Establishment of a Hydrometallurgical Scheme for the Recovery of Copper, Nickel, and Cobalt from Smelter Slag and Its Economic Evaluation
AU - Godirilwe, Labone Lorraine
AU - Haga, Kazutoshi
AU - Altansukh, Batnasan
AU - Jeon, Sanghee
AU - Danha, Gwiranai
AU - Shibayama, Atsushi
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to appreciate the former BCL Mine and the Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST) for their kind support, cooperation, and provision of the smelter slag sample. The authors are grateful for the financial support of the Program for Leading Graduate Schools “New Frontier Leader Program for Rare Metals and Resources” and Akita University Support for Fostering Research Project.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 by the authors.
PY - 2023/7
Y1 - 2023/7
N2 - In pursuit of carbon neutrality, the demand for metals that are necessary for the development of clean energy technologies is rapidly increasing. Metallurgical waste, such as slag, presents a promising secondary source of these key metals. This research aims to develop an eco-friendly hydrometallurgical process to recover Cu, Ni, and Co from discarded copper/nickel slag. High-pressure acid leaching (HPAL) was used to selectively leach Ni, Cu, and Co from the fayalite slag, yielding high leaching efficiencies of 99.9%, 89.4%, and 99.9%, respectively, with low Fe and Si tenors to the pregnant leach solution (PLS). The solvent extraction (SX) technique utilizing LIX 984N was used to selectively extract and enrich copper from the dilute PLS to about 23 g/L Cu with a very low Fe concentration of 0.05 g/L. Potassium amyl xanthate (PAX) solution was used to form Ni and Co xanthate complexes from the raffinate solution. Nickel was selectively recovered using ammonia solution, while the cobalt xanthate complex was thermally decomposed and recovered as cobalt oxide solids of about 25 wt.% Co. A comprehensive process flowsheet is presented. Furthermore, to realize the real application of the developed slag cleaning process, a preliminary economic evaluation was performed.
AB - In pursuit of carbon neutrality, the demand for metals that are necessary for the development of clean energy technologies is rapidly increasing. Metallurgical waste, such as slag, presents a promising secondary source of these key metals. This research aims to develop an eco-friendly hydrometallurgical process to recover Cu, Ni, and Co from discarded copper/nickel slag. High-pressure acid leaching (HPAL) was used to selectively leach Ni, Cu, and Co from the fayalite slag, yielding high leaching efficiencies of 99.9%, 89.4%, and 99.9%, respectively, with low Fe and Si tenors to the pregnant leach solution (PLS). The solvent extraction (SX) technique utilizing LIX 984N was used to selectively extract and enrich copper from the dilute PLS to about 23 g/L Cu with a very low Fe concentration of 0.05 g/L. Potassium amyl xanthate (PAX) solution was used to form Ni and Co xanthate complexes from the raffinate solution. Nickel was selectively recovered using ammonia solution, while the cobalt xanthate complex was thermally decomposed and recovered as cobalt oxide solids of about 25 wt.% Co. A comprehensive process flowsheet is presented. Furthermore, to realize the real application of the developed slag cleaning process, a preliminary economic evaluation was performed.
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U2 - 10.3390/su151310496
DO - 10.3390/su151310496
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85164960639
SN - 2071-1050
VL - 15
JO - Sustainability (Switzerland)
JF - Sustainability (Switzerland)
IS - 13
M1 - 10496
ER -