Ultrasound-assisted leaching of potassium from phosphorus-potassium associated ore

In the present work, experiments have been performed for leaching potassium from phosphorus-potassium associated ore in sulfuric acid/fluorite system with the assistance of ultrasound. The effects of reaction temperature, sulfuric acid concentration, liquid/solid ratio and fluorite dosage on the leaching of potassium were investigated. The results show that the dissolution fraction of potassium can be significantly improved in the presence of ultrasound and under the optimum reaction conditions a dissolution fraction of 94% can be reached. The kinetics analysis shows that the leaching reaction follows the classical unreacted-core shrinking model with internal diffusion being the rate-limiting step.