A new facile solvometallurgical leaching method for the selective Co dissolution & recovery from hard metals waste

Hard Metals (HM) production plays a fundamental role in economy and technological development. Due to the criticality of its main raw materials, W and Co, a sustainable HM waste recycling is hence desirable for both environmental and economic reasons and strongly encouraged by European waste management directives. This work describes a new solvometallurgical leaching method based on diluted maleic acid (H2Mal) ethanolic solutions, which demonstrated to couple effectiveness in materials enhancement from HM waste, with mildness and sustainability of operative conditions. Specifically, H2Mal (0.5 M, EtOH) selectively and quantitatively leached Co trapped within WC-Co powders, to afford [Co(HMal)2(H2O)4] complex within 4 h at room temperature and leaving WC unreacted and ready for re-employment in HM manufacturing. Characterization of the resultant materials i.e. treated powders (SEM-EDS, p-XRD, ICP-OES) and Co-leaching solutions (ICP-OES), confirmed the near quantitative Co removal as well as the possibility to finely tune the composition of WC-Co mixtures. Parameters for best leaching conditions, i.e. time and liquid-to-solid ratio, were obtained. A scale-up experiment addressed to test the leaching conditions and the quality of the recycled material is also described. The quality of the recycled material for direct re-employment in HM manufacturing was validated by Metallurgical Quality Control, to good effect. Finally, preliminary experiments on cobalt metal recovery from the metal complex by electrowinning and by quantitative precipitation as CoCO3 were performed with encouraging results: a step forward resources circularity.