KINETICS OF GALENA LEACHING IN HYDROCHLORIC ACID-CHLORIDE SOLUTIONS

This article presents a series of studies on the nonoxidative leaching of galena with hydrochloric acid in the presence of a metallic chloride. A systematic study was carried out using a succession of metallic chlorides with cations of different valencies in an attempt to generalize the leaching behavior of these solutions. The reaction order for leaching galena, in terms of the mean ionic activity of HCl, is 3/2 over a wide range of concentration. The addition of soluble chlorides to a HCl solution increases the leaching rate of the galena by augmenting the mean ionic activity of the acid. A reaction order of 3/2 for the mean HCl activity in the solution is maintained for solutions in which the acid concentration is constant and the metallic chloride varies, as well as for the opposite situation. Therefore, the only activity that must figure in the kinetic equation is that of the HCl. The activation energy (58.5 kJ/mole) is independent of the chloride used to increase the activity of the hydrochloric acid. The same is true for the Arrhenius prefactor. © 1990 The Minerals, Metals & Material Society.