China Nonferrous Metallurgy

The intermediate material arsenic alkali slag produced during the treatment of a non-ferrous metal smelting enterprise in Shandong Province produced lead anode slime for recovery of gold and silver, has a tellurium content up to 14%, but the existing process has low recovery rate of tellurium. In this paper, the experimental study was carried out on wet leaching of high-tellurium arsenic-alkali residue produced in the process of smelting lead anode slime to produce antimony trioxide. Tellurium in arsenic alkali residue was leached by Na₂S-H₂O system. The effects of liquid-solid ratio, NaOH concentration, Na₂S concentration, leaching time and leaching temperature on tellurium leaching rate were studied. The results showed that under the conditions of liquid-solid ratio of 6∶1, NaOH concentration of 15g/L, Na₂S concentration of 40g/L, leaching time of 1h and leaching temperature of 45℃, the leaching rate of tellurium could reach 82%. Compared with the traditional water leaching process, the leaching rate of tellurium could be increased by 20%, which provides theoretical basis and data support for the clean, efficient and short flow path separation and extraction of tellurium containing materials.