Systems and methods for cobalt recovery

Abstract

Various embodiments provide a method comprising leaching a cobalt bearing material to form a slurry, filtering the slurry to yield solids and a cobalt bearing liquid phase, performing a solution extraction of the cobalt bearing liquid phase to yield a purified cobalt bearing liquid phase, precipitating cobalt gypsum by adding lime to a first portion of the purified cobalt bearing liquid phase, and recycling the cobalt gypsum to the leaching.

1 . A method comprising:
 leaching a cobalt bearing material to form a slurry;   filtering the slurry to yield solids and a cobalt bearing liquid phase;   performing a solution extraction of the cobalt bearing liquid phase to yield a purified cobalt bearing liquid phase;   precipitating cobalt gypsum by adding lime to a first portion of the purified cobalt bearing liquid phase; and   recycling the cobalt gypsum to the leaching.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising forwarding the solids to a second leaching operation. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising bleeding a portion of the cobalt bearing liquid phase to the precipitating step. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising forwarding the solids to tails. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the cobalt bearing material comprises cobalt hydroxide. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the cobalt hydroxide is formed by precipitating cobalt II with magnesia. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the cobalt hydroxide is formed by precipitating cobalt II with lime. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising subjecting a second portion of the purified cobalt bearing liquid phase to an additional conditioning step to yield a conditioned cobalt bearing liquid. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 8 , further comprising bleeding a portion of the conditioned cobalt bearing liquid to the precipitating step. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the second leaching operation is a copper leaching operation. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 8 , further comprising electrowinning cobalt metal from a first portion of the conditioned cobalt bearing liquid. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein the electrowinning comprises a bagged anode process. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the electrowinning comprises a free anode process. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein the electrowinning comprises depositing cobalt metal rounds on a masked cathode. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 11 , further comprising performing a cobalt selective solution extraction on a second portion of the conditioned cobalt bearing liquid to yield a refined cobalt containing liquid. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 15 , further comprising precipitating cobalt salt by adding a precipitating agent to the refined cobalt containing liquid. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 16 , wherein the precipitating agent comprises sodium carbonate. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein the additional conditioning step comprises eluting through a carbon column. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein the additional conditioning step comprises copper ion exchange. 
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein the additional conditioning step comprises nickel ion exchange.