Tantalite ore has limited industrial applications due to impurities. The dissolution process is one of the important processes in the recovery of tantalum from the ore. This study investigated the quantitative leaching of tantalite ore in sulphuric acid. The X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) showed that the ore’s major elemental composition were Ta (41.395 %), Si (11.241 %), Nb (8.70 %), Mn (6.469 %), Sn (5.90 %), W (3.41%), Fe (1.665 %), Th (0.001 %) and U (0.87 %). The effects of acid concentration, dissolution time, and dissolution temperature were studied. The dissolving rate was controlled by hydrogen ion [H+] action in the film diffusion. According to the experimental results, the reaction order with a value of 1.02 depicts a first-order reaction. Using a 10 M acid solution with 0.15 - 0.3 μm particle size, 73 % of tantalite ore was dissolved in 120 minutes. The dissolution process was achieved at the activation energy of 6.79 kJ/mole. These findings contribute to the understanding of tantalite ore dissolution in Sulphuric acid.
Key words: Tantalite, Dissolution, Sulphuric acid, Kinetics, and Activation energy
|
