The function of magnesium oxide in cobalt refining process

Cobalt is a very versatile metal, and there are generally two ways to extract it from nickel-cobalt ores, either by fire smelting or by wet smelting. Wet smelting has been widely used in recent years because of its advantages of low energy consumption, less pollution and environmental protection, especially active magnesium oxide plays an indispensable role in cobalt refining

Two stages of cobalt sinking process:

1. First stage cobalt sinking: Add magnesium oxide with a concentration of about 10% to cobalt, control the PH value, and react for about four hours. After the reaction is completed, the solid and liquid are separated to obtain cobalt hydroxide products and cobalt sinking liquid.
2. Second stage cobalt sinking: Add lime milk to the cobalt sedimentation solution, control the PH value, and continue the cobalt sedimentation reaction for one to two hours. After the reaction is completed, the solid and liquid are separated to obtain the second stage cobalt sedimentation slag and cobalt sedimentation solution. The cobalt sedimentation solution is discharged after the treatment is up to the standard.

The advantages of cobalt extraction from magnesium oxide：

The activated magnesium oxide cobalt extraction process is an efficient method to recover cobalt from low-grade cobalt ore. Qualified cobalt hydroxide is obtained by the two-stage cobalt sedimentation process, which realizes the utilization of low-grade cobalt ore resources. Compared with the existing technology, the activated magnesium oxide cobalt extraction process has the following advantages:

1. The combination of second-stage cobalt slag and fine-ground low-grade cobalt ore can save the cost of iron removal agents and recover the cobalt in the second-stage cobalt slag. On the other hand, most of the carbonic acid in the fine-ground low-grade cobalt ore is consumed in advance, which greatly reduces the amount of sulfuric acid when the iron removal neutralizing slag returns to the first step of cobalt leaching.
2. The use of manganese removal special oxidant, green, environmental protection, high manganese removal efficiency and will not affect the quality of cobalt hydroxide products.
3. 3.The production line formed by active magnesium oxide cobalt extraction process has advantages of simple operation, strong adaptability, high cobalt recovery, good cobalt product quality, low production cost and environmental protection, which can provide a broad space for the development of low-grade cobalt ore at home and abroad.