Effects of Strong-Acid on Performances of Copper Solvent Extraction

Abstract

This paper studied the effect of strong acid---concentrated sulfuric acid---on organic phase physical properties, copper extraction rates as well as phase behaviors in the process of copper solvent extraction. Results demonstrate that with the increase of contact time between organic phase and concentrated sulfuric acid, the organic phase density and viscosity slightly decreased, copper extraction rate linearly decreased from 99.8% to 99.5%, and the average size of organic phase droplet in raffinate cyclically trended to decrease. When the contact time is less than 20 hrs, phase disengagement rate decreased slowly. However, further increasing the contact time the phase disengagement rate decreased rapidly. Organic phase physical properties have little effect on phase disengagement rate.