بهينه سازي شرايط ترسيب تلوريم به صورت CU2Te از محلول حاصل از ليچ اسيدي لجن مس آندي مجتمع مس سرچشمه كرمان

Optimization of Tellurium Precipitation as CuiTe from Acidic Leaching Solution of Anode Slimes

During the electrolytic copper refinery, anodic copper is dissolved and deposited on the cathode. The copper anode slimes are made up of those components of anodes which are not soluble in the electrolyte. They contain gold, silver, selenium, tellurium and the other metals such as copper, lead, nickel and etc. There are several hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical methods to recover valuable elements. As a route, initially, copper is removed and returned back to the electrolysis process. Tellurium is cemented from leaching solution by copper powder as Cu2Te. In this research, at first, anode slimes were analyzed and then leached in sulphuric acid. Leach solution contained 103.6 ppm tellurium. Tellurium was cemented and the effects of time, temperature and amount of copper powder were considered on tellurium cementation. Suitable conditions of cementation of tellurium were as follow: Time: 90 minutes, temperature: 105 degrees centigrade and amount of copper powder: 3 times of stoichiometry amounts. In these conditions, the cementation of tellurium was around 90 percent.