Cobalt Extraction Process | Cobalt Recovery From Copper-Cobalt Ore

Cobalt is a magnetic hard metal with high melting point and good stability. It is an important raw material for the manufacture of heat-resistant alloys, anti-corrosion alloys and cemented carbides.

Cobalt is widely used in aerospace, machinery manufacturing, electrical appliances, chemistry and other industries, and is an important strategic material.

Copper-cobalt ore is a kind of cobalt ore, which can be used for cobalt extraction. Commonly used cobalt extraction processes include flotation, flotation-magnetic separation and leaching process.

Copper-Cobalt Ore Flotation Process

Copper-cobalt ore flotation process is to first obtain mixed concentrate by flotation of copper and cobalt, and then separate copper and cobalt to obtain copper concentrate and cobalt concentrate.

The specific process is:

The raw copper-cobalt ore is processed by grinding, and adjusting agent is added to adjust the pH value of the pulp in the range of 9-10.

The slurry enters the flotation process and undergoes mixed rough flotation. The copper and cobalt ore floats with the foam, and the gangue minerals remain in the slurry to obtain tailings after two scavengings.

The mixed flotation foam is subjected to three beneficiation to obtain a copper-cobalt mixed concentrate. The mixed concentrate is then subjected to copper-cobalt flotation separation, and a cobalt concentrate is obtained through a roughing and a scavenging. The flotation foam is further processed twice to obtain copper concentrate.

The copper-cobalt ore flotation process has strong adaptability and is also suitable for low-grade copper-cobalt ores with fine embedded particle size, which can effectively improve the recovery rate and quality of copper-cobalt concentrates.

However, because it is a single flotation process, the separation effect of copper and cobalt is limited, and it can be used in combination with other processes.

Copper-Cobalt Ore Flotation-Magnetic Separation Combined Process

When the composition of copper-cobalt ore is complex, single flotation cannot effectively recover cobalt.

Because cobalt has weak magnetic properties, flotation can be combined with magnetic separation to extract cobalt from copper-cobalt ores.

The combined flotation-magnetic separation process is suitable for the treatment of oxidized ores containing more magnetic substances, and can effectively improve the grade of magnetic separation concentrates.

After regrinding the flotation tailings to a suitable particle size, they are subjected to strong magnetic roughing by means of a magnetic separator to obtain a strong magnetic roughing concentrate.

The strong magnetic roughing concentrate is then subjected to strong magnetic separation with a magnetic separator to obtain strong magnetic separation concentrate;

The strong magnetic separation concentrate is ground and then subjected to weak magnetic separation, and the weak magnetic separation concentrate is the final magnetic separation concentrate.

Copper-Cobalt Ore Leaching Process

For complex disseminated copper-cobalt ore, leaching process is often used.

After the copper-cobalt ore is crushed and ground, it is classified. The copper-cobalt ore with a particle size above 5mm is subjected to heap leaching, and the copper-cobalt ore with a particle size below 5mm is subjected to stirring leaching.

The copper-cobalt ore leaching process is simple and easy to operate.

In addition to the above three methods, there are other methods for cobalt extraction from copper-cobalt ore.

It is necessary to select the most suitable and efficient process flow according to the ore properties of the raw ore.