Importance

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Abstract

Process for recovery of copper, molybdenum, gold and elemental sulfur in tailings from hydrometallurgical processing of copper sulfide ores, particularly chalcopyrite. The tailings are usually discarded, and thus the recovery of valuable elements therefrom makes the environmentally desirable hydrometallurgical processes of FIG. 1 economically feasible. The tailings are concentrated to a small bulk volume by froth flotation to reject barren gangue and the process (FIG. 2) proceeds by removing sulfur from the solid concentrate residue, preferably by volatilization or leaching with a sulfur solvent, and recovering the elemental sulfur; leaching the residue with ferric chloride to selectively dissolve copper and iron: recovering copper from the liquid, or sending it back to the hydrometallurgical circuit; leaching the residue from the ferric chloride leach with cyanide to selectively solubilize gold, and recovering gold from the liquid, recovering molybdenum ore from the residue from the cyanide leach by froth flotation, and recovering molybdenum from the molybdenum ore.

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First Claim