A process for removal of aluminium and iron in the recycling of rechargeable batteries comprising providing a leachate from black mass, adding phosphoric acid (H.sub.3PO.sub.4) to said leachate and adjusting the pH to form iron phosphate (FePO.sub.4) and aluminium phosphate (AlPO.sub.4), precipitating and removing the formed FePO.sub.4 and AlPO.sub.4, and forming a filtrate for further recovery of cathode metals, mainly NMC-metals and lithium.

A process for bio-oxidation of sulfides in mineral ore having a metal such as gold occluded or dispersed within the ore as a sulfide is disclosed. The first step comminutes the ore into particles with a size distribution having a P80 of less than 0.25 inch with minus 106 micron particles in the range of 15% to 40% by weight. Agglomerates are formed by adding to the comminuted ore particles an acidic inoculate solution including water, with the solution further including microorganisms capable of bio-oxidizing the sulfides. The agglomerates are then placed in at least one bio-reactor containment vessel to form an ore bed. The process continues by bio-oxidizing the sulfides in the ore bed; then re-circulating the solution through the ore bed, and continuing the bio-oxidation until a desired bio-oxidation level is achieved. Thereafter, the metal is recovered from the ore.

A method is provided for leaching the metals while granulating molten matte, comprising the steps of feeding a molten matte as a falling stream into a granulation chamber, spraying a liquid jet on the stream of molten matte to atomize the matte, and cooling the matte particles thus formed. The liquid jet comprises an acid solution containing water and sulfuric acid so that the acid solution starts leaching metals from the molten matte when the liquid jet contacts the molten matte. Part of product solution from granulation can be circulated to liquid jets to increase the metal content in the solution and to reduce its acid con-tent.

A method of processing a pyrite-containing slurry including removing pyrite from the pyrite-containing slurry and forming (i) an inert stream and (ii) a pyrite-containing material. Using the pyrite-containing material in a downstream leach step in which pyrite in the pyrite-containing material generates acid and heat that facilitates leaching a metal, such as copper or nickel or zinc or cobalt, from a metal-containing material.

A process of extracting copper from copper sulphide minerals which is enhanced at solution potentials exceeding 700 mV SHE, in the absence of any microorganism, by contacting the minerals in a pre-treatment phase using an acid solution at a high chloride content containing dissolved copper.

A process for removal of aluminium and iron in the recycling of rechargeable batteries comprising providing a leachate from black mass, adding phosphoric acid (H.sub.3PO.sub.4) to said leachate and adjusting the pH to form iron phosphate (FePO.sub.4) and aluminium phosphate (AlPO.sub.4), precipitating and removing the formed FePO.sub.4 and AlPO.sub.4, and forming a filtrate for further recovery of cathode metals, mainly NMC-metals and lithium.

Provided are: an alloy powder in which nickel and cobalt can be easily dissolved in an acid and stably leached with an acid; a manufacturing method with which an alloy powder that enables stable acid leaching can be obtained at low cost; and a method for recovering a valuable metal using the manufacturing method. An alloy powder according to the present invention includes copper (Cu), nickel (Ni), and cobalt (Co) as constituents, has a 50% cumulative diameter (D50) of 30 .Math.m to 85 .Math.m in the volume particle size distribution, and has an oxygen content of 0.01 mass% to 1.00 mass%.

A method for recovering gold from electronic components includes a first macro-step of dissolving gold and copper from the electronic components using an aqueous solution comprising HNO.sub.3 concentrated in a percentage varying from 28% to 38% and concentrated HCl in a percentage varying from 15% to 25%. A second macro-step includes adding KOH to the obtained solution to bring it to a pH between 0.5 and 0.9. A third macro-step includes adding to the solution obtained in the second macro-step an amount of ascorbic acid dissolved in water equal to the amount of gold hypothetically present in a sample of the first macro-step, multiplied by a factor ranging between 1.5 and 3, causing precipitation of gold, which is separated from the solution and made available in powder form in a fourth macro-step.

A process for recovery of one or more elements, selected from precious metals and chalcophile metals, as herein defined, from materials containing precious and/or chalcophile metal/s, said process including: (i) contacting the material with an alkaline solution containing a lixiviant comprising an amino acid, or derivative thereof, and an alkali stable transition metal complex in order to form a leachate containing the precious metal and/or chalcophile metal; and (ii) recovering the precious metal and/or chalcophile metal from the leachate.

The present disclosure relates to a process for the recovery of transition metals from batteries comprising treating a transition metal material with a leaching agent to yield a leach which contains dissolved copper impurities, and depositing the dissolved copper impurities as elemental copper on a particulate deposition cathode by electrolysis of an electrolyte containing the leach.