Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin, Ekaterinburg, Russia:

L. G. Elfimova, Senior Lecturer (Chair of Metallurgy of Heavy Non-Ferrous Metals)

S. S. Naboychenko, Head of a Chair of Metallurgy of Heavy Non-Ferrous Metals

JSC “Russian Copper Company”, Ekaterinburg, Russia:

Yu. A. Korol, Vice-President, e-mail: u.korol@mail.ru

Consideration of the stabilization problems of pyrometallurgical production working in the Urals shows the urgency of utilization and sale problem for sulfuric acid. Methods of acid utilization by neutralization are considered in this article together with the possibilities of expansion of acid application for hydrometallurgical processing of oxidized ores. Russian Copper Company widely uses the hydrometallurgical sulfuric-acid technologies for underground leaching of copper ores of Gumeshevskoe deposit. The company began the designing of underground leaching unit for oxidized nickel ores on Kulikovskaya group of deposits (Chelyabinsk region). For the purpose of acid consumption increasing, Russian Copper Company specialists offered the consideration of the possibility of atmospheric agitation sulfuric acid leaching of cobalt-nickel ores of Belininskoe deposit (Altai Krai). The carried out investigations showed that laterite ores of Belininskoe deposit may be divided into four groups: ferruginous (20.9%), ferruginous-siliceous (37.8%), ferruginous-magnesia (18.8%) and magnesia (22.5%). Leaching period should last for more than two hours for maximal decomposition of ferruginous minerals. After eight hours of experiments, acid capacity of ferruginous, ferruginous-siliceous, ferruginous-magnesia and magnesia ores was 1210 kg/t, 250 kg/t, 800 kg/t and 430 kg/t of ore, respectively. Taking into account the investigation results of acid capacity, agitation leaching made possible the extraction of 82–94% of nickel and 75–88% of cobalt in solution, depending on the ore type. At the same time, experiments confirmed their higher extraction during the processing of magnesia and ferruginousmagnesia ores. The indicators of processing of ferruginous ores could be improved due to the additional measures both during ore preparation to leaching, and during pulp filtration. Extraction of nickel and cobalt from the obtained solutions is possible using the existing experience and global practice for each certain type of production, including extraction, sorption, precipitating and other methods.

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