Simulation of Simultaneous Leaching of Copper and Cobalt Minerals in Acid-Reductive Media: Sensitivity Analysis and Optimization

In this study, an ASPEN Plus model in steady state, based on experimental studies, was developed to investigate the leaching behavior of copper and cobalt minerals in sulfuric acid-sodium metabisulfite media. The experimental results indicated that copper and cobalt dissolution efficiencies reach 91 and 72%, respectively. The integration of experimental parameters set-up in the ASPEN Plus simulator allowed the reliability of the developed model. The sensitivity analysis performed highlighted the relative effect of acid concentration, leaching time, temperature, and sodium metabisulfite on the leaching process. Moreover, it revealed that the dissolution of copper minerals was mainly enhanced by the increasing sulfuric acid mass flow rate. The dissolution of cobalt from asbolane was promoted by increasing sulfuric acid mass flow rate, while the extraction of cobalt contained in heterogenite highly depended on sodium metabisulfite (Na 2 S 2 O 5 ) mass flow rate. However, a marginal decrease in copper recovery was observed by increasing the mass flow rate of sodium metabisulfite. ASPEN Plus simulated results showed that the leaching recovery could reach 99.77% and 97.92% for copper and cobalt under optimized operating conditions, respectively. Graphical Abstract