Iron leaching from bauxite ore in hydrochloric acid using response surface methodology

In this work, hydrochloric acid is used to remove iron impurities in the bauxite ore contained in the diasporite mineral located in the Sari region. The bauxite ore was calcined at different temperatures and times, and then dissolved in a hydrochloric acid solution. After determining the optimum calcination conditions in 1 h at 900 °C, the response surface methodology (RSM) with four factors in five levels was employed in order to evaluate the effects of calcination temperature, calcination time, acid concentration, and leaching time on the iron leaching efficiency. A quadratic model is proposed using this methodology to correlate the leaching variables. The test results indicate that the model is consistent with the experimental data, and that the most important varriables involved are the acid concentration, leaching time, and squared term of calcination temperature (A2). The maximum iron recovery was 94.97%, and the Fe grade in the solids remained was 2.35% at the calcination temperature of 900 °C, a calcination time of 1 hour, and a leaching time of 2 h in hydrochloric acid (6 mM).