Abstract
The separation of antimony and bismuth in copper electrorefining is somewhat difficult and costly. An ion-exchange technique for the removal of the metals from the electrolyte has been practiced recently, although the metals recovered require further processing. Sumitomo Metal Mining has developed a process to recover antimony and bismuth directly from the eluant by an electrowinning process using a mixture of sulfuric acid and sodium chloride as an eluant for the desorption from the resin. The content of bismuth in the antimony metal recovered by this process was less than 0.2%, while the content of antimony in the bismuth metal was less than 0.4%.
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K. Ando earned his M.Sc. in metallurgical engineering at Kumamoto University in 1986. He is currently a senior scientist at Sumitomo Metal Mining Company.
N. Tsuchida earned his Ph.D. in mineral science at Murdoch University, Western Australia, in 1986. He is currently manager of the Niihama nickel refinery at Sumitomo Metal Mining Company.
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Ando, K., Tsuchida, N. Recovering Bi and Sb from electrolyte in copper electrorefining. JOM 49, 49–51 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11837-997-0033-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11837-997-0033-4