Kola MMC, Monchegorsk, Russia

O. V. Severinova, Manager, e-mail: SeverinovaOV@kolagmk.ru
S. V. Shcherbakov, Chief Engineer, e-mail: ScherbakovSV@kolagmk.ru

Gipronickel Institute, Saint Petersburg, Russia

M. A. Lastochkina, Head of Hydrometallurgy Laboratory, e-mail: LastochkinaMA@nornik.ru

MMC Norilsk Nickel, Moscow, Russia

E. V. Parievsky, Head of the Strategic Production Development Department of the Production Development Directorate, e-mail: parievskiyev@nornik.ru

One of the promising areas of development of MMC Norilsk Nickel is the consolidation of precious metals production in the chemical and metallurgical shop (Kola MMC), the main operation of the process flow chart of which, determining the indicators of subsequent processes, is sulfatization. The applicability of the existing technology for processing new raw materials was tested on a laboratory scale. Copper sludge cinder leaching cake (cinder cake) is a semi-finished product of copper sludge processing at the Polar Division of MMC Norilsk Nickel. The phase composition of the material, which determines its technological behavior, was determined by X-ray phase analysis (XPA) and electron microprobe analysis (EMPA). It was shown that a sulfatization temperature of 140 °C is sufficient for the extraction of copper, nickel and tellurium into aqueous leaching solutions by more than 90% for each element. A further increase in the sulfatization temperature increases the extraction of rhodium, silver and palladium into the solution and has virtually no effect on the extraction of ruthenium and iridium. A two-fold enrichment of the sulfatization cake in platinum and palladium relative to the original raw material was achieved. It was determined that under laboratory conditions, sulfatization with a sulfuric acid consumption of 5, 4 and 3 g/g of cinder cake proceeds in a calm mode; no dependence of the process indicators on the acid consumption was revealed. It was noted that the most refractory component of the material under liquidphase sulfatization conditions is iron in the form of magnetite. Increasing the sulfatization temperature to 300 °C and introducing nickel flotation concentrate as a sulfidizer-reducer did not have a significant effect on the process parameters: iron extraction into solutions in all experiments did not exceed 16%.
The following employees of Gipronickel Institute took part in the work: Yu. A. Savinova, A. A. Gordeeva.

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