| Abstract Scope |
The Zinc leaching process of a silicate concentrate is very similar to the sulfide concentrate. One of the differences is the acidity: for the sulfide process, it can go up to 60 g/L; for the silicate is around 10 g/L. However, in order to improve the Zinc recovery from the silicate (97,6%), it was necessary to increase the acidity to 25 g/L, without consuming extra neutralizing. To achieve that, the pre neutralization process was tested: 6% of the Zinc silicate concentrate pulp was diverged to the end of the process, while 94% of all the material received the extra acidity, resulting in an increased recovery of 98,3%. However, when adding the diverged flow, the overall yield falls to 98,1%. This results showed that the pre neutralization process is applicable to the silicate leaching process, and can increase the recovery up to 0,5%. |