Leaching behavior of rhenium and molybdenum from molybdenite roasting dust in NaOH solutions

The demand for rhenium has considerably increased recently owing to the large-scale consumption in industries and the price of rhenium has increased owing to the lack of supply and its availability. The dust from the roasting of molybdenite was employed to investigate the leaching behavior of rhenium and molybdenum. Leaching experiments were done by varying optimum parameters, such as reaction time, NaOH concentration and leaching temperature. The optimum leaching condition was found to be NaOH, 2 hours leaching time, solid/liquid ratio, temperature, and 250 rpm. At this condition, leaching percentage of rhenium and molybdenum was 86.1% and 88.6%, respectively.