METHOD OF IMPROVING EXTRACTION OF VALUABLE COMPONENTS FROM SULPHIDE MATERIAL BY ELECTRIC PULSE TREATMENT Russian patent published in 2015 - IPC C22B3/04 C22B3/08 C22B15/00 C22B19/00 C22B11/00 

FIELD: chemistry.

SUBSTANCE: method includes washing material with water to obtain a solid residue, preparing a sulphate solution, from which iron, copper and zinc are extracted by transferring iron into the residue in the form of iron hydroxide Fe(OH)₃, precipitating copper from the filtrate with scrap iron, precipitating zinc from the filtrate with hydrogen sulphide. The filtrate, which contains Na₂SO₄ and acid, is then mixed with Ca(OH)₂ to recycle the sodium sulphate and sulphuric acid in the form of a gypsum residue to obtain a filtrate with sodium hydroxide and accumulation of the filtrate for recycling NaOH. The solid residue obtained from the sulphide raw material is re-pulped and the pulp is treated with electric pulses with energy of 3.5-5.5 J, under the action of which pyrrhotine, chalcopyrite, sphalerite and sulphides decompose into iron, copper and zinc oxides and hydrogen sulphide. The liquid phase is then filtered out from the formed pulp and used as recycled water. The oxides of said metals are dissolved in sulphuric acid. The sulphate solution is filtered. Products containing iron, copper, zinc and gypsum are selectively extracted from the filtrate and gold is obtained from the residue, which contains quartz, sericite, gold and low-solubility minerals, by cyanation. Hydrogen sulphide is used to precipitate zinc.

EFFECT: improved metal extraction.

1 dwg, 2 ex