Recovery of critical metals from superalloy scrap by matte smelting and hydrometallurgical processing

Book · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1991

OSTI ID:5480113

Wuest, W J; Stateham, R M

This paper reports that as part of the U.S. Bureau of Mines program to reduce the Nation's reliance on foreign supplies for critical metals, a procedure was devised to separate and recover critical metals from mixed and contaminated superalloy scrap. The process uses both pyrometallurigical and hydrometallurgical, methods to treat the scrap. The mixed scrap is converted to a matte containing 4 to 7 pct S by adding S directly to the molten metal. This matte is then granulated and ground to a minus 35-mesh particle size and leached with an HCl-Cl{sub 2} solution. This process takes essentially all the Ni, Co, Cr, Fe, Al, and Mo into solution in a 3-h leach, leaving W, Ta, Ti, and Nb (Cb) in the residue. The Mo is recovered from the chloride leach solution by solvent extraction and the Cr and Fe are recovered together by precipitation. The Ni and Co can be recovered individually by an existing solvent extraction-electrowinning process. The W is recovered by a caustic leach of oxidized Cl{sub 2} leach residue.

• OSTI ID: 5480113
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
320305* -- Energy Conservation
Consumption
& Utilization-- Industrial & Agricultural Processes-- Industrial Waste Management
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
360100 -- Metals & Alloys
ALUMINIUM
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
CHROMIUM
COBALT
ELEMENTS
EXTRACTIVE METALLURGY
HYDROMETALLURGY
METALLURGY
METALS
MOLYBDENUM
NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
NICKEL
NIOBIUM
OXIDATION
PYROMETALLURGY
RECOVERY
SCRAP
SCRAP METALS
SEPARATION PROCESSES
SMELTING
SOLID WASTES
TITANIUM
TRANSITION ELEMENTS
TUNGSTEN
US BUREAU OF MINES
US DOI
US ORGANIZATIONS
WASTES