A hydrometallurgical process for the separation and recovery of antimony

• A process for antimony recovery from stibnite concentrate is proposed.
• Antimony can be recovered as the form of Sb2O3 or high-purity SbOCl.
• Antimony can be recovered as the form of cathode antimony or crude cathode.
• The optimum parameters for each procedure are introduced.

This study aimed to introduce a comprehensive process for separating and recovering antimony from a complex stibnite concentrate. Antimony is first leached through a chlorination–oxidation procedure to obtain SbCl3 solution. Antimony is then recovered in the forms of cubic crystal Sb2O3 (99.9%), high-purity cathode antimony (99.98%), crude cathode antimony (99.7%), high-purity SbOCl (99.9%), and crude antimony (> 99%) through the following processes: hydrolysis, membrane electrowinning, hydrolysis–low temperature smelting, and hydrolysis–washing.