Ural Federal University named after the First President of the Russian Federation B. N. Eltsin, Ekaterinburg, Russia:

S. S. Naboychenko, Visiting Professor at the Department of Heavy Non-Ferrous Metals of the Institute of New Materials and Technology

K. A. Karimov, Head of the Laboratory at the Department of Heavy Non-Ferrous Metals of the Institute of New Materials and Technology

UMMC-Holding, Verkhnaya Pyshma, Russia:
S. A. Yakornov, Deputy Technical Director — Head of the Strategic Planning Department, e-mail: saz@zinc.ru
S. A. Zagrebin, Deputy Head of the Strategic Planning Department — Head of the Lead and Zinc Department

Due to both economic and environmental aspects of the conventional pyrometallurgical processes, primary lead ore materials, i. e. sulphide concentrates, are currently not processed in the Russian Federation. The use of autoclaving to process lead sulphide materials can only be feasible if it is combined with the production of lead carbonate cakes and their pyrome tallurgical processing within a zinc electrowinning circuit. The pyrometallurgical process is used to process conventional secondary lead materials to produce refined lead and Dore gold. Experiments in pressure oxidation leaching of the lead concentrate from the Rubtsovsk Plant owned by Sibir-Polimetall were carried out with the help of zinc calcine acid leaching solutions from the Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant. The study showed that in the testing environment the recovery of zinc from the concentrate is mainly dictated by temperature, to a lesser degree — by oxygen pressure, and to the least degree – by leaching time. In the course of the experiments, the optimum temperature was 473 К, with the corresponding oxygen partial pressure being 0.6 MPa. In the laboratory environment, a 96% recovery of zinc into solution was reached, the lead sulphatisation was within 91–93%. Specification-grade lead cake (55.8% of lead) contains gold and silver in a concentrated form with the recovery of 96%. The obtained parameters serve as the basic parameters for the following feasibility study which aims to consider the possibility of integrating the process of pressure leaching of lead sulphide concentrate using process oxygen in the zinc production circuit.

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