Dissolution kinetics of malachite in trichloroacetic acid solution.

In this work, an attractive malachite leaching agent has been developed for extracting copper from malachite. The possible chemical reaction of malachite in TCA was also analyzed. The effects of the temperature, TCA concentration, average particle size, and stirring speed on malachite dissolution were investigated and a kinetic model was developed to describe the observed effects. It was found that the dissolution rate increases with increasing solution temperature, concentration, and stirring speed, and decreases with increasing mean particle size. The TCA solution can provide H+ ions, which facilitates the dissolution reaction. A surface chemical reaction contraction model controls dissolution and the activation energy of the dissolution process was determined to be 43.23 kJ/mol. It was shown that TCA can be used as a leaching agent for effective extraction of copper from malachite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]