INFLUENCE OF OXIDANT CONCENTRATION ON THE LEACHING OF FLOTATION TAILINGS IN ACIDIC MEDIUM

The reprocessing of sulphide minerals in flotation tailings is an attractive option for sustainable mine waste management. Conventional mineral processing methods often encounter difficulties when processing tailings, mainly due to factors such as particle size and surface oxidation of minerals. In most cases, copper is extracted from such raw materials using leaching processes. The paper presents an investigation of the leaching of flotation tailings using 0.1 mol/dm3 H2SO4 solution in which ferric ions and hydrogen peroxide play the role of oxidants. The influence of oxidant concentration on the leaching of copper and iron was investigated. It was found that the addition of ferric ions influenced the leaching of copper, with approximately 79% of copper was leached with 5 g/dm3 of Fe(III) ions. It has also been shown that the concentration of hydrogen peroxide affects the leaching of copper and iron. The total copper extraction of 85.31% and iron extraction of 7.66% were achieved with 0.3 mol/dm3 H2O2 during 120 minutes of reaction time.