Tananaev Institute of Chemistry – Subdivision of the Federal Research Centre "Kola Science Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences" Science Center of Russian Academy of Sciences (ICT KST RAS), Apatity, Russia:

N. S. Areshina, Senior Researcher, Candidate of Technical Sciences, e-mail: n.areshina@ksc.ru
A. G. Kasikov, Yead of the Laboratory for Development and Implementation of Chemical Technology Processes, Candidate of Chemical Sciences

Kola MMC, Monchegorsk, Russia:
D. P. Tyukin, Chief Specialist of the Technical Department of Technical Management
K. M. Volchek, Chief Specialist of the Hydrometallurgical Department of the Research Section of the Control and Analytical Center

In 2018 in order to prevent the accumulation of lead in the products of the main technology of JSC Kola MMC the technology of hydrometallurgical processing of fine dust from the nickel concentrate roasting in fluidized bed furnaces was implemented. In the process of roasting, along with lead, silver is concentrated in the fine dusts of electrostatic precipitators. The distribution of silver on intermediate products of the technology is studied and recommendations are given to exclude irreversible losses of this element. It was found that when water leaching of dust, silver is not extracted into the solution, while the treatment of the aqueous leaching residue with sodium chloride solutions under conditions that provide high recovery of lead, results in recovery up to 32% of silver in chloride solution. It is shown that it is not possible to quantitatively concentrate silver in the chloride leaching residue. It is recommended to send the chloride leaching residue based on nickel (II) oxide, free of lead and containing refractory silver compounds, for pyrometallurgical processing in the process of the main technology. It was found that the production of lead cake by interaction of chloride solution with sulfate-containing reagents is accompanied by coprecipitation of silver present in it to form a product containing up to 9.4% (wt.) of this element. The efficiency of treatment of lead cake with sodium sulfite solution for extraction of more than 90% of silver is shown. By treatment of sulfite silver-containing solutions with sodium sulfide, a rich silver-containing concentrate is obtained. A schematic diagram of extraction of silver from lead cake with obtaining of silver-containing concentrate for production of additional products with high added value, as well as suitable for the sale of lead cake. The results of the research allowed to identify the main channels of silver losses during hydrometallurgical processing of dust from nickel concentrate roasting and to recommend ways to prevent them, which will generally increase the complexity of the use of nickel raw materials.

The authors are grateful to the staff of FRC KST RAS (N. Yu. Neradovsky, V. Ya. Kuznetsov, I.V. Glukhovskaya, E.S. Kshumaneva) and JSC Kola MMC (I.A. Basova), who took part in conducting research and analytical support of work.

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