The use of electrohydropulse treatment of waste solutions in refining production for the recovery of platinum group metals

The high cost of precious metals and environmental requirements lead to the need for the completeness of their extraction from primary and secondary raw materials.

During the processing of primary raw materials, waste solutions are produced that contain low-concentration precious metals, which must be removed from the process. To prevent losses and comply with environmental protection requirements, it is necessary to extract precious metals from waste solutions. The complexity of this task lies in the low concentration and chemical forms of the presence of precious metals in aqueous systems. The cementation method, currently used for the extraction of precious metals, has several disadvantages: the duration of the process, high-energy consumption, etc. To increase the efficiency of the method used, it is necessary to pre-treat the solution with the goal of labilizing the noble metal complexes. The purpose of the experiment: determination of the optimal modes of the electrohydropulse (EHP) method for intensifying the process of additional extraction of platinum group metals (PGM) and heavy non-ferrous metals from industrial solutions of refining production. As a result of the study, the necessary materials were selected to create the reactor and electrode systems, the volume of the laboratory reactor was determined. Trial launches of the installation were carried out, according to the results of which a pulse current generator (PCG) was configured. A series of tests was carried out, based on the results of which conclusions were drawn about the possibility of using this method to activate stock solutions.