Leaching kinetics of antimony-bearing complex sulfides ore in hydrochloric acid solution with ozone

The leaching kinetics of Sb and Fe from antimony-bearing complex sulfides ore was investigated in HCl solution by oxidation-leaching with ozone. The effects of temperature, HCl concentration, stirring speed and particle size on the process were explored. It is found that the recoveries of Sb and Fe reach 86.1% and 28.8%, respectively, when the reaction conditions are 4.0 mol/L HCl, 900 r/min stirring speed at 85 °C with <0.074 mm particle size after 50 min leaching. XRD analysis indicates that no new solid product forms in the leaching residue and the leaching process can be described by shrinking core model. The leaching of Sb corresponds to diffusion-controlled model at low temperature (15-45 °C) and mixed-controlled model at high temperature (45-85 °C), and the apparent activation energies are 6.91 and 17.93 kJ/mol, respectively. The leaching of Fe corresponds to diffusion-controlled model, and the apparent activation energy is 1.99 kJ/mol. Three semi-empirical rate equations are obtained to describe the leaching process.