Live shot of industrial tank-farm storage tanks and pipelines
Once the extraction system foams, the clarifier level keeps rising; the organic phase is carried into the aqueous phase by the bubbles, extraction efficiency and metal recovery fall together, and the loss of valuable metals such as nickel, cobalt and copper is magnified.
Chemi Tech launches the KM-068 series defoamer for hydrometallurgical extraction systems, with KM-03 and KM-061 positioned by feed-liquor acidity; the addition level can be set flexibly against the extractant concentration. This series resists acid and alkali and withstands high temperature, breaking foam stably in strongly acidic or alkaline liquor without carrying the organic phase into the aqueous phase. Using measured clarifier level and organic-phase entrainment data, the precise dosage of the KM-068 series can be fixed.
Chemi Tech Defoamer Advantages
The Chemi Tech KM-068 series defoamer is configured for hydrometallurgical extraction systems. Its acid and alkali resistance is strong, breaking foam stably in strongly acidic or alkaline liquor; its high-temperature stability is good, holding up through the heating stages of leaching and stripping; foam suppression lasts long, a single dose covering the whole clarification and phase-separation process; defoaming is fast, clearing tank-surface foam before the level rises; it does not entrain the organic phase, so aqueous and organic phases separate cleanly and extraction efficiency stays stable.
Industry Pain Points and Solutions
Foaming in hydrometallurgical extraction mostly shares one root cause: feed-liquor gas entrainment and defoamer components that cannot resist acid and alkali acting together, which ends up in two places — the rising clarifier level and organic-phase entrainment.
Once the clarifier level rises, phase-separation time stretches out and the extractant's effective contact area is compressed. After the KM-068 dosage is set against the extractant concentration, its acid-alkali-resistant foam breaking holds the level stably back within the phase-separation range.
When the organic phase is entrained into the aqueous phase by bubbles, valuable metals are lost with the entrainment and extraction efficiency drops step by step. KM-068's foam breaking does not carry the organic phase into the aqueous phase.
The loss of valuable metals and extractant consumption both end up in the processing cost per tonne of metal. Against changes in extractant concentration and feed-liquor acidity, the dosage can be narrowed to an accountable range, directly cutting metal entrainment loss.
Typical Conditions and Verification
Customer: a copper smelting enterprise in Yunnan, applied to the clarification and phase-separation section of copper extraction.
After checking against clarifier level and organic-phase entrainment, Chemi Tech set KM-03 as the defoamer for this plant's extraction section, with dosage fixed against the extractant concentration. Before that, the clarifier level kept rising, organic-phase entrainment caused aqueous-phase back-mixing, and phase-separation time lengthened batch by batch. After deployment, the change showed first at the clarifier level, then phase-separation time gradually narrowed; aqueous-phase clarity recovered, extraction efficiency trended stable, and valuable-metal entrainment loss dropped markedly.
FAQ
Will adding a defoamer to the extraction liquor affect phase separation between the organic and aqueous phases?
Everything hinges on whether the defoamer components can break foam stably under strong acid and alkali and whether they carry the organic phase into the aqueous phase. KM-068 has completed phase-separation and entrainment comparison tests in copper-extraction conditions; within the recommended range phase separation is clean and the aqueous phase does not back-mix. Actual dosage uses the extractant concentration as the baseline, with feed-liquor acidity and temperature as correction factors; Chemi Tech fixes the suitable dosage from the side-by-side comparison of clarifier level and organic-phase entrainment.