METHOD TO REPROCESS WASTES OF HARD ALLOY Russian patent published in 1994 - IPC

FIELD: tungsten and cobalt hydrometallurgy. SUBSTANCE: hard alloy wastes containing cobalt are subjected to two staged treatment by an acid selected from a group involving hydrochloric acid, nitric acid, sulfuric acid with acid treatment at 20 to 80 C temperature and 0.3 to 3 ml per 1 g of wastes during 2 to 10 h in the coarse of the first stage. Oxidizing calcination of residuals is performed after solution separation. At the second stage oxidized product is subjected to acid treatment at 10 to 100 ml acid expenditure per 1 g cobalt with cobalt conversion to solution, and tungsten compound to precipitation. Calcination is carried out in air current with steam flow of 0.2 to 1 g per 1 g of wastes to decrease calcination temperature down to 700 to 800 C. The precipitation is dissolved in alkaline solution at 20 to 80 C and atmospheric temperature to convert tungsten in solution after cobalt separation. EFFECT: method allows one to obtain pure cobalt solutions in mineral acid, as well as tungsten acid or alkaline solution of tungsten. 3 cl, 1 tbl