Innovations in Hydrometallurgical and Electrometallurgical

Processing: A TMS2012 Symposium Sampling

MICHAEL L. FREE
1,3
and SHIJIE WANG
2,4
1.Department of Metallurgical Engineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112,
USA. 2.Rio Tinto Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation, South Jordan, UT 84095, USA.
3.e-mail: michael.free@utah.edu. 4.e-mail: wangs@kennecott.com
Hydrometallurgical and electrometallurgical pro-
cessing is becoming more common in a variety of
industrial applications. In metal extraction, tech-
nologies such as solvent extraction have helped to
facilitate large-scale, low-grade extraction of metals
such as copper by hydrometallurgical processing,
which is followed by electrometallurgical recovery.
In other areas, hydrometallurgical and electromet-
allurgical technologies are being utilized to enable
recycling and by-product recovery of metals and
metal compounds. Improvements in technologies
have been applied to the development of resources
in common as well as rare metals that would not
otherwise be possible. The use of hydrometallur-
gical and electrometallurgical technologies is
increasing; as the world demand for metals
increases, the natural resources become lower in
grade and more challenging to process, and the
need to recycle metals to conserve resources and
energy grows.
Hydrometallurgical processing has been used to
enable the large-scale extraction and recovery of
many metals. Most metals, including relatively
inert metals such as gold and platinum, can be
extracted, processed, and recovered using aqueous
solutions. The availability of water and the
interaction and amenability of metal processing in
water-based solutions makes hydrometallurgical
processing an attractive method for the processing
of many metals, many of which come from ore bodies
that were formed in part by hydrometallurgical
processing in the Earths crust. Some of the main
challenges that face hydrometallurgical processing
include energy utilization, environmental viability,
chemistry limitations, and separation technologies.
Electrolytic processing is used commercially to
recover and/or rene metals that include large-scale
production for aluminum, copper, magnesium,
nickel, and zinc. In addition, electrometallurgical
processing is used on a smaller scale for recovery
and rening of gold and silver. There are also
exciting opportunities to utilize electrometallurgy in
the production of titanium, lead, and other metals.
Electrolytic processing of metals faces common
challenges that include energy utilization, chemis-
try, productivity, and safety. To meet the present
challenges in commercial electrometallurgy, a vari-
ety of technological advances have been made.
Similar challenges will be faced in the future,
requiring process improvements and innovations.
Two international symposia covering hydromet-
allurgy and electrometallurgy topics were held at
the TMS2012 Annual Meeting in Orlando, Flor-
ida.
1,2
The T.T. Chen Symposium was held in honor
of T.T. Chen, who has made great contributions to
the scientic and industrial communities in mate-
rials characterization, electrometallurgy, and
hydrometallurgy.
Tzong T. Chen, or T.T. as he is often called, is an
Emeritus Scientist, who has worked for CANMET
for the past 38 years, where he has served the global
metallurgical industry through his application of
mineralogical methods to evaluate metallurgical
processes and to assist with their development.
Chenite, as shown in Fig. 1, a photo of the blue
crystals, Pb
4
Cu(SO
4
)
2
(OH)
6
, was named in honor of
Chen.
To celebrate Chens outstanding contributions to
the science and practice of extractive metallurgy
and especially to honor his pioneering studies on the
characterization of metallurgical products, Shijie
Wang and several friends and colleagues organized
the T.T. Chen Honorary Symposium on Hydromet-
allurgy, Electrometallurgy and Materials Charac-
terization that was held at the TMS2012 Annual
Meeting. Many individuals from the worlds metal-
lurgical community saluted Dr. Chen for his
numerous scientic achievements at this event.
There were 69 presentations in eight sessions,
and 76 papers, including the poster session, were
included in the published proceedings.
1
The
symposium included plenary session, Copper
JOM, Vol. 64, No. 11, 2012
DOI: 10.1007/s11837-012-0460-8
2012 TMS
(Published online September 26, 2012) 1277
Electrorening, Base Metal Processing, Transition
Metal Processing, Precious Metals, Recycling and
the Environment, Processing and Properties I and
II, and Characterization. It was a great opportunity
to bring many people, including senior-level per-
sonnel, from the gold, copper, lead, and zinc indus-
tries to the TMS Annual Meeting. The success of the
symposium was summarized by a statement from
Professor William Davenport, a well-known author
and engineer, it was a huge success from start to
nish!
The Electrometallurgy 2012 symposium was
focused on fundamental research, development,
and/or application of innovative aqueous or molten
salt electrometallurgical processing technologies for
the extraction, concentration, recovery, rening,
environmental treatment, and recycling of metals
from ores, concentrates, process solutions, scrap, or
waste. Electrometallurgy 2012 was a great success.
There were 34 presentations in four sessions, and 25
papers were included in the published proceedings.
The Electrometallurgy symposium will be held
every four years. This symposium addressed some
of the main industry technologies as well as some of
the recent advances and potential future develop-
ments that enable the electrometallurgy industry to
provide important metal products now and in the
future.
The accompanying articles have been included in
this section of JOM to give a very small sampling of
the types of papers and topics included in the T.T.
Chen and Electrometallurgy symposiums. Metal
Separation and Recovery in the Mining Industry,
by Steven R. Izatt, Ronald L. Bruening, and Neil E.
Izatt considers the role of molecular recognition
technology in the hydrometallurgical processing of
dissolved entities in solutions in the mining indus-
try; Extraction of Molybdenum from Molybdenite
Concentrates with Hydrometallurgical Processing,
by Kaixi Jiang, Yufang Wang, Xiaoping Zou, Lei
Zhang, and Sanping Liu, examines a hydrometal-
lurgical process with pressure oxidation leaching
and solvent extraction that was developed in recent
years to treat molybdenite concentrate; and New
Technology for Electrorening of Copper by
Andreas Filzwieser and Tim Robinson focuses on
a process that utilizes a novel manifold electrolyte
inlet to improve copper production.
REFERENCES
1. Shijie Wang, John E. Dutrizac, Michael L. Free, James Y.
Hwang, and Daniel Kim, eds., T.T. Chen Honorary Sympo-
sium on Hydrometallurgy, Electrometallurgy and Materials
Characterization (Warrendale, PA: The Minerals, Metals &
Materials Society, 2012).
2. Michael L. Free, Michael Moats, Georges Houlachi, Edouard
Asselin, Antoine Allanore, Jim Yurko, and Shijie Wang,
eds., Electrometallurgy 2012 (Warrendale, PA: The Miner-
als, Metals & Materials Society, 2012).
Fig. 1. Chenite, a blue crystal mineral named in Chens honor (photo
courtesy of Stephan Wolfsried, Germany).
Free and Wang 1278