Arsenic Removal from Lead Concentrate-Containing Mimetite Mineral to Solve the Environmental Problem for Smelting Process

The presence of arsenic in base metal concentrates including copper, lead, and zinc creates problems such as low quality of final product and environmental issues. Therefore, additional processing steps for removing arsenic are required. Among several methods to reduce arsenic from these concentrate...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of sustainable metallurgy 2021-09, Vol.7 (3), p.1004-1012
Main Authors: Hadizadeh, Mina, Barakan, Shima, Aghazadeh, Valeh
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Alkaline leaching
Arsenic
Arsenic compounds
Arsenic removal
Base metal
Caustic soda
Earth and Environmental Science
Environment
Environmental impact
Lead
Metallic Materials
Metallurgy
Research Article
Smelting
Sodium
Sodium hydroxide
Sodium sulfide
Sustainable Development
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The presence of arsenic in base metal concentrates including copper, lead, and zinc creates problems such as low quality of final product and environmental issues. Therefore, additional processing steps for removing arsenic are required. Among several methods to reduce arsenic from these concentrates, alkaline leaching was selected as an efficient and simple method. In this research, sodium sulfide and sodium hydroxide mixtures were used for arsenic elimination from lead concentrate produced by Zarrin Madan Asia Company. To obtain optimum conditions, the effect of some parameters such as temperature, leaching time, liquid/solid ratio (L/S), sodium sulfide, and sodium hydroxide concentrations on arsenic removal was investigated. Based on characterization methods, mimetite was the main arsenic compound in lead concentrate; however, after alkaline sulfide leaching, the starting material was decomposed, and lead was mainly transformed to PbS. Accordingly, up to 98% of arsenic was removed under optimum selective leaching conditions (30 g/L of sulfide sodium, 5 g/L of sodium hydroxide, at 85 °C, 15 min, and L/S ratio = 7). To immobilize arsenic from alkaline leaching, the precipitation method was used by finding optimum conditions (at Fe/As = 3, 25 °C and 12 h). Therefore, the final product was suitable for further smelting processes without any environmental problems. Graphical Abstract
ISSN:2199-3823
2199-3831
DOI:10.1007/s40831-021-00375-x