Hydrometallurgy

Hydrometallurgy is a technique within the field of extractive metallurgy, the obtaining of metals from their ores. Hydrometallurgy uses solutions to recover metals from ores, concentrates, and recycled or residual materials. Usually the extracting solution is aqueous (water-based), often containing additives such as acids. In select cases, the extracting solvent is nonaqueous. Processing techniques that complement hydrometallurgy are pyrometallurgy, vapour metallurgy, and molten salt electrometallurgy. Hydrometallurgy is typically divided into three general areas:

Leaching involves the use of aqueous solutions to extract metal from metal-bearing materials. The extracting solution is called a lixiviant. The lixiviant is optimized in terms of pH, oxidation-reduction potential, presence of chelating agents, and temperature. In a simple implementation, a slurry of the pulverized ore in the lixiviant solution is filtered to yield a solution containing the metal ion(s) of interest. For example copper in its carbonate minerals such as malachite dissolve in aqueous sulfuric acid. On the other hand, copper sulfide minerals, which are more prevalent, are not amenable to hydrometallurgy, at least until they have been roasted. Hydrometallurgy is used to extract rare earths.

By using chelating agents, one can selectively extract certain metals..

Some leaching reactor configurations are in-situ, heap, vat leaching, tank, and autoclave. In-situ leaching is also called "solution mining" involves pumped extracting soltuion into the deposit. The Beverley uranium deposit is an example of in-situ leaching.

In heap leaching, crushed (and sometimes agglomerated) ore is piled in a heap on top of an impervious sheet. Leach solution is sprayed over the top of the heap and allowed to percolate downward through the heap. The heap design usually incorporates collection sumps, which allow the "pregnant" leach solution (i.e. solution with dissolved valuable metals) to be pumped for further processing. An example is gold cyanidation, where pulverized ores are extracted with a solution of sodium cyanide, which, in the presence of air, dissolves the gold, leaving behind mostly nonprecious residue.

After leaching, the leach liquor must normally undergo concentration of the metal ions that are to be recovered. Additionally, undesirable metal ions sometimes require removal.

In the solvent extraction a mixture of an extractant in a solvent (sometimes called a diluent) is used to extract a metal ions from one phase to another. In solvent extraction this mixture is often referred to as the "organic" because the main constituent (diluent) is some type of hydrocarbon derivative. Di(2-ethylhexyl)phosphoric acid (the extractant) and tributyl phosphate (the diluent) are used for the liquid–liquid extraction from aqueous solutions. The combination of di(2-ethylhexyl)phosphoric acid and tributyl phosphate are also used in nuclear reprocessing.

Chelating agents, natural zeolite, activated carbon, ion exchange resins, and liquid organics impregnated with chelating agents are all used to exchange cations or anions with the solution.