Efficient cleaning extraction of silver from spent symbiosis lead-zinc mine assisted by ultrasound in sodium thiosulfate system.

The process to fast recovery of silver from the spent symbiosis lead-zinc mine enhanced by ultrasound has been developed. A system composed of thiosulfate and the spent symbiosis lead-zinc mine under ultrasound radiation is researched and compared with regular methods to prove the superiority of ultrasound enhanced leaching. Oxygen is not provided by the usual way but by the cavitation of ultrasound, and the effect of ultrasonic enhanced leaching is more obvious than oxygen enhanced leaching effect. We are more authoritative by combining some valuable literature after conducting systematic experiments. The process mechanism was analyzed by fire assaying, XRD, XRF, SEM and EDS. The optimal conditions were found out through single factor experiments: stirring rate of 300 rpm, thiosulfate concentration of 75 g/L, leaching temperature of 303 K, PH of 5, leaching time of 2 h and the ultrasound power of 100 W. And the leaching rate is 77.34% under the best conditions. When the ultrasonic experiment has the same parameters as the normal, the leaching rate at five minutes under ultrasonic conditions was 73.88%, while the leaching rate was only 72.51% at two hours under normal conditions. The apparent activation energy under conventional and ultrasonic conditions is 12.47 kJ/mol and 12.35 kJ/mol, respectively, and it is proved that both are controlled by diffusion.