Hydrometallurgical processing of ash and slag waste

This work assesses the possibility of hydrometallurgical processing of ash and slag waste in order to extract rare and rare earth elements. The ash and slag waste from the Chita CHPP-2 combined heat and power plant was used as a research object. Inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) was used to determine the elemental chemical composition of coal combustion products. To preconcentrate rare and rare earth elements, magnetic separators were used to isolate the -0.5+0.3 mm and -0.3+0.1 mm grain size fractions of ash and slag waste. The leaching of rare and rare earth elements from the studied samples was investigated using sulfuric, hydrochloric, and nitric acids, as well as an aqua regia solution, in combination with simultaneous ultrasonic exposure. It was determined that electromagnetic separation of the -0.5+0.3 mm and -0.3+0.1 mm grain size fractions of ash and slag waste significantly concentrates rare and rare earth elements in the magnetic fraction, including titanium (up to 25%), zircon (up to 33%), yttrium (up to 50%), lanthanum (up to 150%), and cerium (up to 5%). It was determined that an increase in the duration of ultrasonic treatment during the leaching of metals from ash and slag waste with sulfuric acid resulted in a uniform 7.25-fold increase in gallium content (from 0.008 to 0.058 g/dm3). Additionally, when decomposed with aqua regia, a 3-fold concentration of the same element was observed (from 0.008 to 0.024 g/cm3), while ultrasonic treatment offered only a slight increase in concentration. When leaching with sulfuric acid (the duration of ultrasonic exposure is 5 minutes), a 4-fold increase in the rubidium content was observed (from 0.108 to 0.457 mg/dm3). Therefore, the most effective method for extracting rare and rare earth elements from the ash and slag waste of Chita CHPP-2 involves acid leaching combined with electromagnetic separation and ultrasonic pulp leaching.