1. HSC Simulation of Hydrometallurgical Processes
Petteri Halli
Taina Kalliomäki
CHEM-E6810
Chemical precipitation

2. Chemical precipitation
Precipitating can be used recovering metals from liquids like waste waters as sulphides, hydroxides or carbonates
Metal sulphides are more stabile
Hydroxides can dissolve into the solution after precipitating, less stabile
Carbonates dissolve in liquid solutions
better selectivity
In this simulation Cu is precipitated from leached and filtered electronic scrap solution as copper carbonate using CaCO3 and other metals metal as sulphides using H2S(g)

3. Objective
Separate impurities and Cu from the leached and filtered electronic scrap before EW
Precipitate Cu as carbonate and dissolve it into H2SO4 for EW process
Precipitation of impurities using H2S (g)
Chemical precipitation is a part of solution purification of leached and filtered electronic scrap

4. HSC-SIM Chemical precipitation

5. Input process parameters
Reactor 1: Cu precipitation
Feed
H2O t/h
Cu t/h
Zn t/h
Fe t/h
Ni t/h
Ca+2 needs to be controlled!
CO needs to be controlled!
CaCO3 needs to be controlled!
Reactor 2: CuCO3 dissolution
H2SO4 needs to be controlled!
H2O needs to be controlled!
CuCO3
Reactor 3: Precipitating other metals
H2S (g) needs to be controlled!
Impurities

6. Draw units and streams

7. Select unit models
Save the process and save backup

8. Create variable list

9. Add reactions

10. Specify distributions

11. Controls Some feeds has to be controlled
Adjusting the concentrations of the feeds
Avoid using insufficient amounts of reagents
Avoid using excess amounts of reagents and waste the chemicals

12. Create controls Controlled inputs and outputs Reactor 1 Reactor 2
Input: CaCO3 and H2SO4
Reactor 2
Input: H2SO4 and H2O
Output: H2SO4 and Cu
Targets: g/L H2SO4 and g/L Cu
Reactor 3
Input: H2S

13. Create controls
Reactor 1
Reactor 2
Reactor 3
Custom sheet

14. Run the process model Run the process model
If everything in Log viewer is green there is no errors