China Nonferrous Metallurgy

In order to explore the process of recovering tellurium from copper anode slime, which features short process flow, simple operation, low Te loss and high Te recovery, direct or indirect alkaline leaching tests are carried out for four kinds of Te bearing materials produced in the processing of copper anode slime, and impurity removal test is carried out for the product from the leaching process with higher Te recovery. The following conclusions are drawn: Te leaching rate reports 1.26% at most in the alkaline leaching test for selenium-removed residue, which contains a small amount of Te4+; that is 1.2% in the alkaline leaching test for the neutralization residue of the solution resulting from Au precipitation, in the solution Te exists mainly in the form of Te6+; that is no more than 20% in the alkaline leaching test for Pt-Pd concentrate, which contains elemental tellurium and Te6+ mostly and small amount of Te4+; while the leaching rate of Te can reach 98.69% in the alkaline leaching test for the neutralization residue of the solution from primary reduction, in the residue Te exists in the form of Te4+, and Na2S is used to remove the heavy metals in the leachate, showing good effect.