Acid Solution for W and Cu Separation from Tungsten Copper Scrap

Tungsten (W) has high hardness, high strength, high toughness and many advantages, which in the state of pure metals and alloys are widely used in modern manufacturing, such as tungsten carbide, tungsten heavy alloy, heat resisting alloy, wear-resistant alloy, electrical alloy, vacuum components, contact switches and so on. And it has been gradually become the indispensable materials for chemical industry, metallurgical industry, machinery industry, petroleum industry, aerospace industry, nuclear industry and the defense industry. Tungsten as an important strategic resource, our country has rich mineral resources of tungsten and the total output and export is the first place around world. However, according to the speculation of the experts and scholars, tungsten resources in mining 50 years will face severe shortages of various countries are also concerned about the recycling of tungsten, especially the recovery of waste alloy.

According to related statistics, the country has dozens of tons of waste each year nearly tungsten copper alloy no suitable recovery method to separate and use, resulting in great losses and waste. Currently the more common methods include saltpeter melting, chemical substitution, electrolysis, high temperature oxidation, phosphoric acid extraction method, zinc melting evaporation method, etc., but these processes are relatively complex and lengthy process, and the relatively high cost, poor stability, which can not be suitable for industrialization widely used. So we introduce a acid solution to effectively separate W and Cu from tungsten copper scrap. It is based on the principle that copper reacts with the acid, and tungsten does not react with the acid. Common tungsten copper alloy scrap, such as contacts, electrical switches, copper tungsten alloy electrode, vacuum components, ion bombardment heating used tungsten copper alloy. Waste tungsten copper alloy of copper content is generally 10-40% tungsten content is generally 60% -90%. Since Cu by means of capillary infiltrated into the porous W skeleton sintered or impregnated with copper liquid, which provides a good condition for acid solution to separate tungsten copper alloy.

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