Leaching Recovery of Zinc, Cobalt and Manganese from Zinc Purification Residue

This paper reports on the recovery of zinc, cobalt and manganese by two-step leaching of zinc-plants purification residue with sulfuric acid. The residue, hot filter press cake (HFC), contains 14 % ZnO, 4.8 % Co3O4 and 22.9 % MnO. Effects of different parameters are determined and used to optimize the process. With acid to hot filter press cake (HFC) stoichiometry of 0.85, acid concentration of 30 g/L and temperature of 25ºC, it took two minutes to separate zinc from zinc plant residue. Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) was used as an oxidation agent. The most suitable acid concentration for leaching of both cobalt and manganese was 50 g/L. Recovery of cobalt and manganese increased with peroxide concentration in the leaching solution.