Study on selective removal of impurity iron from leached copper-bearing solution using a chelating resin

Abstract

In order to selectively remove iron from copper laden solution after leaching but prior to electrowinning, equilibrium, kinetic, and thermodynamic studies have been conducted on an a chelating resin of Rexp-501 at pH 1.0 and at various temperatures. Both Langmuir and Freundlich models were investigated, with the Langmuir model proving to be more suitable for fitting iron removal performance, with little influence from copper concentration. Compared with the pseudo first order kinetic model, the pseudo second order kinetic model fitted the dynamic adsorption process better, indicating a chemisorption mechanism. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) results indicated that C=O from carbonyl group played a key role in combining with iron and can be regenerated and reused. However, the C=O of the acylamino group combining with iron was not able to be released after oxalic acid was applied.