Mechanochemical pretreatment and thiosulphate leaching of silver from complex sulphide concentrate

Abstract

The refractory character of complex ores and concentrates is at present one of the main problems of their metallurgical processing. The research activity in this sphere is aimed at the methods of improving the process of metal extraction from the sulphidic minerals representing the major components of these ores and concentrates.One of the sulphidics components of complex ores is tetrahedrite. It represents a compound of complicated structure containing several metals among which copper, antimony and arsenic prevail. Some deposits are aspecially rich in silver. The Peruvian complex sulphidic concentrate of provenience Casapalca is each from these rich deposits.In this study the physico-chemical transformations and leachability of silver from Peruvian sulphide concentrate mechanochemically activated by ultrafine alkaline milling in the attritor were investigated. The experiments with alkaline leaching of using samples have shown that this hydrometallurgical process represents an effective method to prepare of treated concentrate with physico-chemical means for further leaching process. Ammonium thiosulphate were used as agent for obtain of silver to leaching solution.The leaching of as-received concentrate with the alkaline thiosulphate solution afforded only 6 % Ag into leach. The use of milling in attritor as an innovation method of pretreatment brought about 57% of structure degradation of tetrahedrite as silver-bearing mineral in concentrate as well as to the increase in specific surface area from the original value 0.26 m2g-1 to the maximum value of 16 m2g-1. This pretreatment has been performed in an attritor using the method of experiment design. The physico-chemical changes had influence on the two step process of thiosulphate leaching of silver.The optimum results obtained by mechanochemical pretreatment and subsequent leaching of the concentrate with ammonium thiosulphate were achieved by using milling time 30 min and weight of sample 30 g. Maximum 99 % recovery of Ag was reached already after 3 min of leaching