United States Patent (19) 11 4,293,332 Wang Et Al
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United States Patent (19) 11 4,293,332 Wang et al. (45) Oct. 6, 1981 54 HYDROMETALLURGICAL PROCESS FOR Primary Examiner-G. Ozaki RECOVERING PRECIOUS METALS FROM Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Burns, Doane, Swecker & ANODE SLIME Mathis 75) Inventors: Wei Ko Wang, Lung-Tan; Ying-Chu 57 ABSTRACT Hoh, Chia-An Village; Wen-Shou A hydrometallurgical process for recovering precious Chuang; I-Sine Shaw, both of Taipei, metals, such as gold, silver, selenium, and tellurium etc. all of Taiwan from anode slime has been developed and tested suc 73 Assignee: Institute of Nuclear Energy Research, cessfully. The process comprises three major unit oper Taiwan ations: leaching, liquid-liquid extraction, and reduction. The decopperized anode slime is first leached with 21 Appl. No.: 132,493 nitric acid at an elevated temperature to obtain a leach solution containing at least about 95% by weight of the 22 Filed: Mar. 20, 1980 silver content, 96% by weight of the selenium content and 76% by weight of the tellurium content of the Related U.S. Application Data decopperized anode slime. Silver in the nitric acid leach 63 Continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 46,685, Jun. 8, 1977, solution is recovered in the form of silver chloride. abandoned. Subsequent to the recovery of silver chloride, the sele 51) Int. Cl. .............................................. C22B 11/04 nium, tellurium, copper and other impurities-containing 52 U.S. C. ................................... 75/99; 75/101 BE; solution is denitrated and chlorinated by a liquid-liquid 75/118 R; 75/118 P; 75/121; 423/24; 423/27; extraction technique. This selenium, tellurium, copper 423/510 and other impurities-containing chloride solution is 58 Field of Search ................... 75/99, 118 R, 118 P, treated to separate tellurium from selenium, copper and 75/101 BE, 121; 423/24, 27, 510 other impurities by a liquid-liquid extraction technique. Selenium and tellurium are then recovered individually 56) References Cited by passing sulfur dioxide through the selenium-contain U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS ing and tellurium-containing solutions. The nitric acid 1,315,660 9/1919 Ferguson ...... ... 75/99 leach residue is treated with aqua regia to leach gold 2,076,738 4/1937 Martin et al. 423/510 and other impurities at an elevated temperature for a 2,084,394 6/1937 Heberlein ................................ 75/99 period of about 1 to 4 hours. The gold-containing solu 3,127,244 3/1964 Elkin et al. ... ... 75/99 X tion is sent to separate gold from other impurities by a 3,387,928 6/1968 Doumas.... 423/510 X liquid-liquid extraction technique. Gold with a purity of 3,414,380 12/1968 Mod .......... ... 42.3/510 greater than 99.9% is recovered by introducing a reduc 3,419,355 12/1968 Van Stein ........ ... 75/99 X ing agent to the gold-loaded organic extractant at an 3,658,510 4/1972 Hoffmann et al. ... ... 75/99 elevated temperature for a period of about 2 to 4 hours. 3,944,414 3/1976 Yanagida et al. ... ... 75/99 This newly developed process is pollution-free, energy 3,996,046 12/1976 Hoffmann et al. ...................... 75/99 4,002,544 1/1977 Heimala et al. .. 75/118 RX saving, and economic to compare with conventional 4,076,605 2/1978 Bilson ................................. 75/99 X pyrometallurgical processes. 4,094,668 6/1978 Yannopoulos et al. ... 75/99 4, 63,046 7/1979 Subramanian et al. ............. 75/99 X 17 Claims, 4 Drawing Figures DECOPPERIZED ANODE SLIME AQUA REGA LEACHING FILTRATION FILTRATION a TO SMELER HC -------- H2C2O4. ORGANC AQUEOUS SEPARATION STRIPPING - - - - - HNO3 WASTE - - - - - - ORGANIC FILTRATION FILTRATION AQUEOUS TO Cu RECOVERY SOLED Se e U.S. Patent Oct. 6, 1981 Sheet 2 of 2 4,293,332 STRip SOLUTION HEAVY AQUEOUS FEED - SOLUTION AQUEOUS AEED SOLUTION REDUC TION . .es as a - as as is a se are esas - a -r - - - - - - - - - - - - - -AQUEOUS FLOW F. G. A. a at as ORGANIC FLOW s SOLID 4,293,332 1. 2 cipitated by passing sulphur dioxide gas through the HYDROMETALLURGICAL PROCESS FOR acidified leach solution. RECOVERING PRECIOUS METALS FROM Other important methods include roasting with con ANODE SLIME centrated sulphuric acid, when the selenides are con verted to selenium dioxide which volatilises and is col REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS lected in wet scrubbers and elecrostatic precipitators, This application is a continuation-in-part application Selenium is precipitated from the scrubber solutions as of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 46,685, filed June 8, described above, purified by dissolution and re-precipi 1977 and now abandoned. tation and finally distilled to obtain a readily marketable 10 product. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The decopperized anode slimes, containing varying This invention relates to a new process to recover the amounts of selenium, are smelted in a Dore furnace, the precious metals, such as gold, silver, selenium and tellu major impurities such as lead, arsenic, selenium and rium, etc. from copper refinery anode slimes. copper being slagged off with silica, soda and nitre. The Copper refinery anode slimes, briefly called anode 15 resulting Dore metal, containing the gold, silver and slimes, which are settled and accumulated at the bottom platinoids, is then electrolytically refined in a Moebius. of electrolytic copper refining cells, are made up of Silver of "three nines' quality or better is recovered at those components of the anodes which are not soluble the cathodes, while the gold and platinoids, together in the electrolyte. They containing varying quantities of with some silver, settle as an anode sludge. The sludge copper, silver, gold, sulphur, selenium, tellurium, lead, 20 may be treated by boiling with sulphuric acid to dis arsenic, antimony, nickel, silica, iron, etc. The object of solve the silver and high purity gold may then be recov treating anode slimes has always been the recovery and ered from the residue by smelting and electrorefining. separation of precious metals. With the passage of time, The above mentioned conventional pyrometallurgi increasing attention has been paid to improving the cal process to recover the precious metals is getting recovery and quantity of by products, mainly selenium 25 harder and harder to operate due to the facts that en and tellurium. ergy costs have soared, the strict pollution laws have The conventional treatment of anode slimes entails been enacted and high grade ores have been depleted. numerous, and often complex, hydro- and pyrometal After an intensive investigation into the problems and lurgical operations. These result in the removal of the limitations of conventional pyrometallurgical process various constituents over a number of process steps, the 30 nature of the particular anode slimes being treated de for the treatment of copper refinery anode slimes, we termining the final procedure adopted. have now designed a new process for these anode slimes In general existing anode slimes treatment processes that provides a clean separation of the valuable constitu have been designed to remove copper first, and then to ents of the slimes without producing a large amount of recover the precious metals in the form of an alloy, 35 off-gas as well as wasting a large amount of energy. referred to as Dore metal. Impurities such as selenium In order to cope with the soaring energy costs, to constitute useful by-products. Whilst recoveries of sil comply with strict pollution laws and to face up to the ver, gold and copper are high at about 97 percent, the depletion of high grade ore, a new hydrometallurgical recovery of selenium seldom exceeds 80 percent. Also, process to recover the precious metals has been devel because of the tendency for selenium to oxidise and oped and tested successfully. The process is economic, volatilise at fairly low temperatures, it is evolved during energy-saving as well as pollution-free. The newly de all heat-treatment stages and its collection is thus spread veloped hydrometallurgical process consists of (1) over the entire process. leaching step, where the precious metals are introduced Copper present in the slimes occurs usually as metal to the aqueous environment, (2) solvent extraction step, lic copper dislodged from the anodes, together with 45 where the metals are separated and purified, and (3) copper sulphides, selenides and tellurides. Depending reduction step, where the metallic ions are reduced and on how effectively the slimes have been washed after precipitated from solutions. being removed from the electrolytic cell, they may SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION contain up to 25 percent of the copper as water-soluble sulphates. The usual practice is to remove the copper as 50 Our new process for the recovery of the gold, silver, the first stage in the slimes treatment process. This is selenium and tellurium content of decopperized anode accomplished by carrying out a low temperature (260 slimes comprises treating the slimes three times with to 430 C) oxidizing roast followed by sulphuric acid stoichiometric proporations of nitric acid at a concen leaching. Alternatively, the slimes may be digested at tration of about 4 to 9 M and at a temperature of be about 260 C. for 8 to 12 hours with concentrated sul 55 tween about 40' to 115° C. for a period of at least 40 phuric acid to decompose the selenides and the reaction minutes to obtain a nitric acid leach solution containing completed by roasting the mass. The soluble copper at least about 95% by weight of the silver content, sulphate is then separated from the calcine by leaching about 96% by weight of the selenium content and about with water. The copper sulphate solutions obtained by 75% by weight of tellurium content of the decopperized these methods are usually contaminated with selenium anode slimes and to obtain a nitric acid leach residue and silver, which must be removed before the copper is containing gold, antimony, arsenic, tin, silica, lead plati finally recovered by electrowinning, cementation or noids and other impurities content of the decopperized crystallisation as copper sulphate.