Hydrochloric acid leaching of minerals from nigerian soil

ABSTRACT

Effects of particle size on the leaching of some metals [Mn, Cu, Fe and Zn] from soil was studied at room temperature and different hydrochloric acid concentrations. It was found that the metal concentration in the leachate decreases steadily with increasing leaching time up to a limit with exception of iron. However, the metal concentration observed at 75 micro m and 288 micro m did not differ largely after a long time of leaching. The highest metal concentration was obtained using a particle size of 75micro m. A linear relationship was established between the plots of inverse of concentration in the leachate and inverse of leaching time. This observation confirms the validity of the proposed equation for the correlation of the concentration in the leachate with leaching time. The correlation of the predicted leaching concentrations with the experimentally determined ones showed only 11.0% deviation