Simultaneous and efficient leaching of mercury and antimony from mercury tailings

Abstract:Mercury tailing is a kind of hazardous waste produced during metallurgy of mercury mines. Long-term preservation of mercury tailings does great harm to ecological environment. On the other hand, mercury and antimony in tailings are also valuable metals. It is significant to recover mercury and antimony during harmless treatment of mercury tailing. In this paper, an effective method-leaching mercury and antimony from mercury tailing by using Na2S solution based on column leaching-was proposed. The effects of key process parameters on leaching ratios are studied. And the optimization conditions for the simultaneous separation of mercury and antimony are obtained. The strategies for the recycling of leaching solution and the increase of mercury and antimony concentrations are suggested. The results show that the leaching ratios of mercury and antimony are up to 96.7% and 69.2% after two-time leaching. The concentrations of mercury and antimony are 22.8 g/L and 10.0 g/L, respectively.