Coordination leaching of tungsten from scheelite concentrate with phosphorus in nitric acid

Abstract

A hydrometallurgical process for tungsten extraction and recovery from scheelite is reported. The technology includes leaching scheelite using phosphoric acid as chelating agent in nitric acid solutions, extracting tungsten by solvent extraction and reusing leaching agent. In the leaching process, affecting factors, such as temperature, leaching time, nitric acid and dosage of phosphoric acid, were examined on recovery of tungsten. Results show that more than 97% of tungsten could be extracted under conditions of leaching temperature of 80-90 °C, HNO₃ concentration of 3.0-4.0 mol/L, liquild-to-soild ratio of 10:1, H₃PO₄ dosage of 3 stoichiometric ratio and leaching time of 3 h. Solvent extraction was then employed for the W recovery from the leachate with a organic system of 40% (v/v) N235, 30% (v/v) TBP, and 30% sulfonated kerosene. Approximately 99.93% of W was extracted and ammonium tungstate solution containing 193 g/L W was obtained with a stripping rate of 98.10% under the optimized conditions.

Keywords

scheelite / nitric acid / phosphoric acid / coordination leaching

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