Hydrometallurgy
General
Hydrometallurgy is used to recover metals from ores, concentrates, and recycled or residual materials. Typical hydrometallurgical processes include leaching, solution concentration and purification followed by metal recovery. The opposite is pyrometallurgy, which is extraction of metal at high temperature.
Leaching is the use of an aqueous solution containing a lixiviant such as sulfuric acid to dissolve metal species contained in an ore. After concentrating the solution, the dissolved metal is recovered by processes such as electrowinning, electrorefining or precipitation.
The hydrometallurgy environment can be very aggressive with high levels of chlorides at temperatures near the boiling point in combination with low pH levels. At the same time, dissolved metal inhibit corrosion. This balance means that materials for hydrometallurgical equipment must be chosen taking into account the characteristics of each plant, ore, lixiviant etc.
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