Elimination and recovery of antimony from copper resources

In a response to the recent growth in the global demand for copper products, mining industries have intensified in their mining operations. Unfortunately, the grade of copper ore concentrates mined today is declining due to the intensive mining of the relatively high grade copper resources. Therefore, future copper ore deposits to be mined are likely to be richer in impurity elements like antimony and arsenic which attract smelter’s penalty if the content of these impurities is too high. It is however imperative to selectively eliminate and recover the antimony impurity of the copper concentrates in an environmentally friendly process with a view of upgrading the concentrates for a pyrometallurgical processing.This paper discusses the alkaline sulphide hydrometallurgical technology to selectively solubilize antimony impurity from a copper concentrate. The effect of sodium sulphide and sodium hydroxide concentrations, leaching time and leaching temperature on antimony dissolution will be examined. Furthermore, antimony recovery as a marketable product from simulated pregnant leach liquor through electrodeposition will be discussed. Various experimental factors that influence antimony deposition from alkaline sulphide electrolyte are reported.Godkänd; 2013; 20130626 (andbra