Extraction of lead from electrolytic manganese anode mud by microwave coupled ultrasound technology

Highlights: • Pretreatment with microwave roasting greatly increases lead leaching rate. • Introduction of ultrasonic enhanced leaching process. • The mechanism of the microwave activated of EMAM and the strengthening of ultrasonic leaching were analyzed. • Result is of great significance to reduce the environmental pollution of industrial production. In this work, extraction of lead from Electrolytic Manganese Anode Mud (EMAM) by microwave coupled ultrasound was studied. The results showed that microwave roasting promoted the conversion of MnO₂ to Mn₂O₃ and Mn₃O₄, which greatly facilitated the subsequent leaching process of lead and the introduction of ultrasound effectively enhanced the leaching process. The leaching rate for lead from EMAM was arrived to 86.98% under the optimum conditions with the ammonium acetate concentration of 2 mol/L at 343 K and the stirring speed of 300 rpm for 60 min. With the introduction of specific power ultrasound, the leaching of lead was increased by about 10%. The microwave roasting combined with ultrasonic enhanced leaching can effectively for the reuse and reduction of EMAM which provides ideas for further investigation of lead pollution control and resource utilization in EMAM.