Treatment of tellurium-containing lead compounds
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There is a batch of mixed lead raw material with the following compositions (%): Pb, Bi, Ag, Au, Te, As, S, Sb, Cu – 80.5, 6, 1500 (grams/ton), 2 (grams/ton), 0.58, 4.6, 3.2, 2.7, 1.8. I would appreciate guidance from experts on the most cost-effective way to handle this material
Tellurium is highly volatile; generally, vacuum melting methods are used for its processing. Perhaps the original poster could consider starting from this approach. However, tellurium is highly toxic; be careful when producing it – it’s something I’ve learned from experience.
The tellurium content is too low; recovering tellurium alone does not yield much economic benefit
-- It seems like you were poisoned? --
Hehe, just melt it directly – add some flux and carry out oxidation through blowing to produce crude lead. The crude lead can be electrolyzed or sold directly, while the slag from the blowing process can be used to recover valuable metals such as tellurium and bismuth.
4# FILTRATION-MAN: Yes, I used to carry out experiments and production related to the recovery of germanium, indium, tellurium, and antimony from their alloys; I was poisoned about a dozen times, and I’m still scared when I think about it!
If the output is high, it still has value for recycling
Copper telluride is used to enrich tellurium in copper metallurgy. It involves reacting copper powder or copper particles with tetravalent tellurium in an acidic solution (preferably sulfuric acid) to produce copper telluride. This process was discovered by the Russians, and Mitsubishi in Japan was the first to implement its industrial production. After enrichment, copper telluride is easy to handle; it can be refined on its own or sold to other factories, as many people are willing to purchase it. Tellurium is very expensive!
In bismuth metallurgy, caustic soda is used to remove tellurium