Abstract: Diffusion dialysis (DD) was proposed as a pretreatment step to reduce the acidity of real sulfate/chloride pregnant leach solutions containing cobalt(II) and nickel(II). Optimum DD conditions that enable reduction of acidity in the feed while maintaining a high rejection level of metal ions present in PLS were proposed, e.g. for 0.06 dm3/min flow of both aqueous phases H+ concentration in the dialysate reached 3.8 and 2.99 M for PLS1 and PLS2, respectively. Acid diffusion coefficients varied from 0.32.10-6 to 3.15.10-6 m/s and decreased with increasing phase flow rates. Moreover, dialysate neutralization was beneficial for the H+ reduction in the feed.

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