Rich Germanium Zinc Sulfide Concentrates Oxygen Pressure Leaching Of A Pilot Study

As scattered metal, germanium its unique and excellent physical and chemical properties is widely used in high-tech fields. At present, germanium mainly from the recovery of zinc smelting industry, but long-term production practice shows that the conventional zinc smelting process, the long process of recovery of germanium, the low recovery rate, and greater pollution of the environment. In order to improve the recovery rate of germanium, reduce environmental pollution in germanium recycling process, and promote the long-term health of germanium metallurgical development, so research and development of new metallurgical processes germanium is of great significance.Germanium-rich zinc sulphide concentrate mainly zinc concentrate and associated with divalent metal germanium, the grade of 110g/t around. Against this mine, we were studied acid pressure oxidative leaching of germanium-rich zinc sulphide concentrates, use of this technology as the characteristics of environmentally friendly, germanium high recovery and process simplify is expected to replace the traditional process.In this paper analysed the present status of zinc and germanium smelting at home and abroad and the thermodynamics and kinetics of acid pressure oxidative leaching of germanium-rich zinc sulphide concentrates, on the basis of refer to a large number of germanium and zinc smelting process and related materials.Lab-scale pressure oxidative leaching of germanium-rich zinc sulphides, to investigate the variables such as leaching temperature, leaching duration, oxygen pressure, granularity, molar ratio of acid to zinc and rotation speed on the dissolution of germanium. Orthogonal experiment results showed that leaching temperature and oxygen pressure are major factors affecting the dissolution of germanium. then the single factor leaching experiments were conducted to study the conditions of leaching temperature, oxygen pressure, granularity, rotation speed, molar ratio of acid to zinc and leaching time on the rate of leaching of zinc and germanium, and to determine the optimum conditions of pressure oxidative leaching.The optimum test conditions are as follows: 150℃leaching temperature, oxygen pressure 1.2MPa, granularity smaller than 320M 98.2% (grinding hours 9 min), rotation speed 700rpm, molar ratio of acid to zinc of 1.5, leaching time 120min. Under these conditions of the test results: zinc leaching rate of more than 99%, germanium leaching rate of more than 90%, the conversion of elemental sulfur nearly 80%, the final acid leaching solution in the concentration of 20g/L, and iron ion concentration in the 5g/L. Acid pressure oxidative leaching of germanium-rich zinc sulphide concentrate for the extraction of zinc and germanium provides the foundation and conducive to the enrichment of germanium and shorten the process, while improving the recovery rate of germanium.