Drinkard Metalox, Inc.

Deepgreen Engineering, Pte. Ltd.

Drinkard Developments

Hans J Woerner

William F Drinkard

William M Nixon

An improved method for treating manganese-containing materials, such as seafloor manganese nodules, by leaching with aqueous HNOand NO gas, and more particularly to methods for recovering valuable constituents from such nodules, especially manganese, cobalt, nickel, iron, and copper. It also provides a method to leach manganese material to release the titanium, vanadium, cerium, molybdenum and other metals from the manganese oxides and to make them available to be recovered.

Treatment of manganese-containing materials

An improved method for treating manganese-containing materials, such as seafloor manganese nodules, by leaching such materials with aqueous HNOand polymerized nitric oxide (NO), and more particularly to methods for recovering valuable constituents from such nodules, especially manganese, cobalt, nickel, iron, and copper. It also provides a method to leach manganese-containing material to release any titanium, vanadium, cerium, molybdenum and other metals from the manganese oxides and to make them available to be recovered, as well as providing a method of producing a fertilizer grade nitrate product.

An improved method for treating manganese-containing materials, such as nodules recovered by undersea mining, including reacting the materials with ammonia, and leaching with a mineral acid, and to methods for recovering valuable constituents from such nodules, especially manganese, cobalt, nickel, iron, copper, titanium, vanadium, cerium, and molybdenum. A method for the production of nitrate products is also disclosed.

Process for recovering metal values from oxides of manganese-containing materials

An improved method for processing of nickel-bearing ores, particularly saprolite and limonite, to recover the valuable minerals contained therein, comprising leaching the ore with nitric acid to form a slurry; separating the iron values by precipitation, removing the iron values; forming a liquid/solid residue in which nickel, cobalt and magnesium are in solution, and manganese and aluminum, when present, are solid residues in oxide form; conducting a liquid-solid separation and removing the solids; and recovering the nickel, cobalt, and manganese from the liquid-metal concentrate. The leachate is recovered and nitric acid from the leachate is recycled.

Method of recovering metal values from nickel-containing ores

An improved method for processing of nickel bearing saprolite and limonite ores to recover the valuable minerals contained therein, comprising leaching the ore with nitric acid to form a slurry; separating the iron values by precipitation, removing the iron values; forming a liquid/solid residue in which nickel, cobalt and magnesium are in solution, and manganese and aluminum are solid residues in oxide form; conducting a liquid-solid separation and removing the solids; and recovering the nickel, cobalt, and manganese from the liquid-metal concentrate. The leachate is recovered and nitric acid from the leachate is recycled.

Method of recovering metal values from ores

Separation of calcium from metal compounds

A treatment of metallurgical dust and recovery of valuable chemical commodities, comprising the steps of: leaching salts from the dust with water to create a washed EAF dust; reacting the washed EAF dust in a nitric acid solution resulting in a nearly complete dissolution of the zinc, cadmium, copper, magnesium, calcium, manganese and lead from a filtrate; removing iron from the filtrate by raising pH in the system with basic zinc carbonate; removing cadmium, copper and lead in an electrolytic cell, where copper and cadmium are collected at the cathode, and lead is collected at the anode; evaporating and decomposing the filtrate to obtain metal oxides and anhydrous calcium nitrate; leaching the solid residue with water to separate calcium nitrate in a marketable form; removing the zinc from the magnesium and manganese by leaching the residue with an amine solution; stripping the filtrate of ammonium carbonate to yield zinc precipitated as a zinc oxycarbonate; dividing the zinc oxycarbonate into a first stream and a second stream by reacting the zinc complex with acid to produce a zinc product, the first stream serving as a pH adjuster to precipitate iron, the second stream preparing highly pure zinc products for sale; and, separating a residue containing magnesium and manganese by dissolving magnesium in acid, whereby liquid filtrate contains marketable magnesium nitrate or sulfate. The nitric gases given off during the steps are recycled to nitric acid by a nitric recycle.

Metallurgical dust recycle process

A method of preparing copper arsenate compositions having unique advantges in lower cost and higher performance for use in preparing chromated copper arsenate wood preserving formulations. These copper arsenate compositions are insoluble copper arsenate in water or as a dry reactive powder, have a mol ratio of As.sub.2 O.sub.5 to CuO of 1:4, and is readily soluble in chromic acid to form CCA wood preservatives. This copper arsenate is prepared by reacting suitable copper-bearing materials with arsenic trioxide and air or oxygen in ammoniacal solutions. Either or both of the starting raw materials, i.e., the copper and the arsenic, may be very impure, which impure materials were heretofore unsuitable for the production of copper arsenate.

Growing community of inventors

Mt. Pleasant, NC, United States of America

Hans J Woerner