Patent 7731777 was granted and assigned to Outotec on June, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The invention relates to a hydrometallurgical method for separating the precious metals and impurities of anode sludge obtained from copper electrolysis. According to the method, anode sludge copper is separated in atmospheric leaching; calcinated in two steps for separating selenium and for sulfatizing silver; the sulfatized silver is separated by leaching into a neutral aqueous solution, from which it can be separated by reduction or by extraction.