The Membrane Electrowinning Separation of Antimony from a Stibnite Concentrate

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to characterize and to extract antimony from a stibnite concentrate through electrowinning. This article reports an account of a study conducted on the optimization of the process parameters for antimony pentachloride circular leaching, purification, and electrowinning of antimony from antimony trichloride solution. The effect of electrowinning parameters, such as antimony and sodium chloride concentration in the catholyte, temperature, current density, polar distance, etc., on the voltage requirement and the current efficiency (CE) of antimony electrodeposition was explored. A maximum CE of more than 97 pct was attained with a catholyte composition of 70-g/L antimony, 25-g/L NaCl, 4.5-mol/L hydrogen ion concentration, with an anolyte composition of 40-g/L antimony trichloride at a temperature of 328 K (55 °C), a 4-cm polar distance, and a cathode current density of 200 A/m2. Under the optimized conditions, the CE was more than 97 pct, and a 99.98 pct antimony plate was obtained on the cathode. The chemical content analysis of the resulting anolyte was indicated to be 97 pct antimony pentachloride and 3 pct antimony trichloride, which could be recycled to leaching tank as the leaching agent.