Effect of microwave pretreatment on chalcopyrite dissolution in acid solution

Abstract

Microwave-roasting as an efficient method for extracting copper form chalcopyrite has attracted increasing attention. In this work, the microwave roasted chalcopyrite was pressure leached in 1.0 mol/L sulfuric acid solution at the temperature range of 110–150 °C, and the reasons why microwave-roasting improved the leaching kinetics were further studied by the electrochemical characterizations. Results show that microwave-roasting had a positive effect on better mineral leachability. Under the optimal conditions, the final copper extraction was 90.1% and the iron extraction was 87.5%. The leaching process of the microwave roasted chalcopyrite was controlled by chemical reaction, and the calculated activation energy was 41.7 kJ/mol. The electrochemical study results indicated that microwave-roasting had a significant effect on both the anodic dissolution kinetics and the cathodic reactions kinetics, and the charge transfer resistance of chalcopyrite oxidation and the resistance of the passive film were both lower than that of the un-roasted sample. X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscope (SEM) results suggested that microwave-roasting effectively activate chalcopyrite through modifying the surface structure. Besides the enlargement of the effective reaction surface, the differential scanning calorimetry-thermogravimetric analysis (DSC-TGA) results revealed that the increasing of active sites and/or the internal stress can increase the strain energy and instability of chalcopyrite, which plays an important role in improving chalcopyrite leaching kinetics. The main product of pressure leaching was elemental sulfur that mixed with the copper-rich sulfide, causing the passivation of chalcopyrite.