Synthesis And Application Of High Performance Copper Extractant

Copper is an important metal, and is used very extensively. With the exploitation of copper ore , the grade of the quality declined gradually, the ore is increased that is difficult to be dealt with. Copper hydrometallurgy technology has already become the main way for copper smelting. Hydrometallurgy is generally composed of soak, extraction and electro-deposition , and extraction is a very important process. Also, the choice of extractant is an essential consideration in the process of extraction. Though it is early that people started research in this area in our country, copper hydrometallurgy technology is not popularized for various reasons. The variety of extractant is limited and can't meet the demand for many kinds of different extracts.In order to solve the extraction problem that is mentioned above, we have done some research the work in this field. The study emphasized on the synthetic route, the performance of extractant and the influence of modifier on extraction of alkysalicylaldoxime, and results can be concluded as follows:.(1) Two kinds of alkysalicylaldoxime are synthesized with alky-phenol , p-methyl aniline, poly-formaldehyde as materials and 200# gasoline as solvent instead of toluene. The operation of this technology is simplified and it is easy for phase-separation. The environment for working is improved. The yield of the aldehyde is increased with the reaction time prolonged from3h to 6h. The highest yield is near to 48% and the equal-yield is above 45%.(2) The results show that these two kinds of alkysalicylaldoxime are good extractant with short extraction balance time(for 3 minutes), high extractive efficiency(extract copper for 4.265~4.335g/L), excellent selectivity and high copper/iron separation coefficient (up to 650).(3) The comprehensive properties of nonyl-salicylaldehydeoxime such as the solubility of extracted compound and phase disengagement performance can be improved as nonyl-phenol was added as modifier. And the copper/iron separation coefficient of nonyl-phenol is also increased, which makes it meets the demands of industry furthermore.