Extraction and Separation of Valuable Metals in Leaching Solution of Acidity obtained from Cobalt Crust.

Cobalt crust, one of the mineral resources at the seabed, includes nickel, cobalt, copper, iron and manganese fairly.At the beginning of this study, the dilute sulfuric acid leaching have been occurred on cobalt crust using hydrogen peroxide as a reductant. As a result of the leaching test, almost of all valuable metals in the cobalt crust were leached in the solution.By addition of the calcium carbonate in the leaching solution, iron was removed completely as iron hydroxide. In this time, the other valuable metals were not effected by the calcium carbonate.In the experiment of extraction, 10% LIX-84I kerosene solution was used. The extraction percentage from the leached solution with the 10% LIX 84-I kerosene solution were more than 99% for nickel, cobalt at pH: nearly 7.0 and copper at pH: nearly 2.0.In the stage of extraction, the separation of nickel and cobalt was difficult, because of the same extraction behavior. Therefore, the studies were occurred on separation by stripping. In the stripping from the organic phase containing nickel, cobalt and copper, copper was stripped with the hydrochloric acid solution at pH: nearly O. Nickel was stripped at pH: 1. After this operation, cobalt may be got by hydrogen sulfide.