Robert M. Buchan Department of Mining, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, K7L 3N6, Canada.
National Research Council Canada, Ottawa, ON K1A 0R6, Canada.
Chemosphere. 2022 May;295:133890. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.133890. Epub 2022 Feb 5.
Elemental sulfur is a key component in the acidic Albion chalcopyrite atmospheric leaching process and is a challenging issue in the residue. It has been proposed to use Lanxess Lewatit® AF 5 (AF 5) catalyst during the leaching of copper concentrates in the acidic Albion leach process, to eliminate the elemental sulfur from the leach residue. When using AF 5 during leaching, the copper and the iron recoveries were above 95% and 80%, respectively. The AF 5 collected 100% of the elemental sulfur and for a 1:1 ratio of AF 5 to concentrate, the loaded AF 5 gained 12.3 wt% sulfur after the first acidic Albion leach test and contained 24.3 wt% sulfur after two leaching tests. In this study, the optimum conditions for the removal of sulfur from the catalyst were investigated using a high temperature process in a laboratory tube furnace. The results indicated that the maximum desulfurization of 90.1% was achieved at 550 °C after 10 min. The regenerated AF 5 could be reused for several chalcopyrite leaching-AF 5 cycles. For the recycled AF 5, the sulfur absorption decreased by only 1.0% while the recoveries of copper and iron were not affected. The kinetic study showed that the activation energy for AF 5 desulfurization was 164.5 kJ/mol.
元素硫是酸性 Albion 黄铜矿大气浸出过程中的关键组成部分，也是残渣中的一个难题。有人提议在酸性 Albion 浸出工艺中使用朗盛公司的 Lewatit® AF 5（AF 5）催化剂浸出铜精矿，以从浸出残渣中去除元素硫。在浸出过程中使用 AF 5 时，铜和铁的回收率分别超过 95%和 80%。AF 5 收集了 100%的元素硫，对于 1:1 的 AF 5 与精矿的比例，在第一次酸性 Albion 浸出试验后，负载的 AF 5 获得了 12.3%的硫，在两次浸出试验后，其硫含量达到 24.3%。在这项研究中，使用实验室管式炉中的高温工艺研究了从催化剂中去除硫的最佳条件。结果表明，在 550°C 下经过 10 分钟，脱硫率最高可达 90.1%。再生的 AF 5 可用于几个黄铜矿浸出-AF 5 循环。对于回收的 AF 5，硫吸收仅下降了 1.0%，而铜和铁的回收率没有受到影响。动力学研究表明，AF 5 脱硫的活化能为 164.5 kJ/mol。
