Recovery of rhenium from dust and waste acid generated from copper-molybdenum smelting: A critical review

IF 5 2区工程技术 Q1 ENGINEERING, CHEMICAL

Minerals Engineering Pub Date : 2025-09-08 DOI:10.1016/j.mineng.2025.109761

Xingfei Zhang , Zihao Sun , Xianzhong Bu , Wei Sun , Haisheng Han , Xuewen Song , Sen Wang , Jiwei Xue , Chonghui Zhang

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Abstract

Rhenium (Re), as a scarce metal, is primarily essential for producing high-temperature superalloys and platinum–rhenium catalysts, which together consume over 90 % of global Re production. As a significant aerospace power, China relies on Re imports for more than 50 % of its demand. This paper comprehensively reviews the Re separation and extraction from secondary resources, focusing on copper-molybdenum smelting dust and waste acid, which account for over 80 % of Re occurrence. Recovery process needs to consider variations in raw materials and develop tailored technologies. The main industrial route for dust pretreatment involves pyrometallurgical processing followed by solution leaching. However, it faces issues such as high energy consumption and low leaching selectivity. Achieving deep recovery from leaching solution lies in the high-precision separation of Re from impurities. Both chemical and non-chemical precipitation methods are widely used. Non-chemical precipitation typically achieves recovery rates above 95 % but requires weakly acidic or neutral conditions, necessitating prior wastewater treatment. Chemical precipitation is simple, efficient, and rapid for strongly acid wastewater, but the traditional precipitation process often leads to co-precipitation of impurity ions, which reduces product purity. Effective control of sulfur ion concentration during sulfide precipitation is crucial for improving separation precision. The selective precipitation can be optimized by finely adjusting the properties and addition methods of the sulfurizing agent. This paper proposes a new approach to Re recovery through three key dimensions: source control-process enhancement-precise separation. It also addresses the current challenges and outlines future directions for improving Re recovery from smelting dust and waste acid, guiding its deep, efficient separation and high-value utilization in metallurgical by-products.

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从铜钼冶炼产生的粉尘和废酸中回收铼：综述

铼（Re）作为一种稀缺金属，主要用于生产高温合金和铂铼催化剂，这两种金属加起来消耗了全球稀土产量的90%以上。作为一个重要的航空航天大国，中国50%以上的需求依赖于再进口。本文对二次资源中稀土的分离和提取进行了综述，重点介绍了占总稀土含量80%以上的铜钼冶炼粉尘和废酸。回收过程需要考虑原材料的变化，并开发量身定制的技术。粉尘预处理的主要工业路线是火法冶金，然后是溶液浸出。但也面临着能耗高、浸出选择性低等问题。实现浸出液深度回收的关键在于稀土与杂质的高精度分离。化学沉淀法和非化学沉淀法都被广泛使用。非化学沉淀法通常可以达到95%以上的回收率，但需要弱酸性或中性条件，需要事先处理废水。化学沉淀法处理强酸废水简单、高效、快速，但传统的沉淀法往往导致杂质离子共沉淀，降低了产品纯度。硫化物沉淀过程中硫离子浓度的有效控制是提高分离精度的关键。通过调整硫化剂的性能和添加方式，可以优化选择性沉淀。本文从源控制-过程增强-精确分离三个关键维度提出了一种新的稀土回收方法。指出了当前面临的挑战，并概述了提高冶炼粉尘和废酸中稀土回收的未来方向，指导其在冶金副产物中的深度、高效分离和高价值利用。

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来源期刊

Minerals Engineering 工程技术-工程：化工

CiteScore

8.70

自引率

18.80%

发文量

519

审稿时长

81 days

期刊介绍： The purpose of the journal is to provide for the rapid publication of topical papers featuring the latest developments in the allied fields of mineral processing and extractive metallurgy. Its wide ranging coverage of research and practical (operating) topics includes physical separation methods, such as comminution, flotation concentration and dewatering, chemical methods such as bio-, hydro-, and electro-metallurgy, analytical techniques, process control, simulation and instrumentation, and mineralogical aspects of processing. Environmental issues, particularly those pertaining to sustainable development, will also be strongly covered.