Engineering

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Recovery of Lead from Lead Laden Cupels by a Simultaneous Leaching and Electrowinning Process in a Methanesulphonic acid bath
(Sphinx Knowledge House, 2014) Mangunda, Cledwyn T.; Kuipa, Olga; Sithole, Tapuwa R.; Kuipa, Pardon K.
Cupels are generated by mines during the fire assaying of precious group metals. The cupels contain lead which is a known environmental hazard hence the need to recover it. This work illustrates how leaching and electrowinning processes can be combined to produce a hybrid lead recovery process. Bench scale tests were conducted for the hybrid leaching and electro winning process using Methane Sulfonic Acid (MSA) as a leaching solvent at a concentration of 200g MSA per litre of water. A glass electrowinning cell fitted with a 9cm × 4cm pure lead cathode and 9cm × 4cm graphite anode with inter electrode gap of 15cm and a magnetic stirrer bar was used. Lead laden cupels (containing 30g lead) were subjected to simultaneous leaching and electrowinning and lead recovery after a period of 80 minutes was found to be 98%. The hybrid process was found to require about 20% less solvent than that required for the convectional leaching process which requires multiple stages to reduce the concentration of the solute in the raffinate to the same extent.