Annual cobalt

Prices of cobalt compounds are directiy related to the cost of cobalt metal which fluctuates widely. Zaire is the primary cobalt suppHer. The price of cobalt metal was 46.30/kg in July 1992, down from 76.75/kg in December 1991, but up from the 27.56/kg July 1991 price. Annual usage of cobalt in the western world averaged 15,950 t in 1980—1984. The nonmetaUic uses of cobalt were about 35% in 1984 and estimated to be 40% in 1990 (1,8,9). 

Buchanan, R. A. and Lemons, J.E. In Vivo Corrosion-Polarisation Behavior of Titanium-base and Cobalt-base Surgical Alloys , Transactions of the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Society for Biomaterials, Orlando, Florida (1982)... 

The raw materials needed to supply about ten million new automobiles a year do not impose a difficult problem except in the case of the noble metals. Present technology indicates that each car may need up to ten pounds of pellets, two pounds of monoliths, or two pounds of metal alloys. The refractory oxide support materials are usually a mixture of silica, alumina, magnesia, lithium oxide, and zirconium oxide. Fifty thousand tons of such materials a year do not raise serious problems (47). The base metal oxides requirement per car may be 0.1 to 1 lb per car, or up to five thousand tons a year. The current U.S. annual consumption of copper, manganese, and chromium is above a million tons per year, and the consumption of nickel and tungsten above a hundred thousand tons per year. The only important metals used at the low rate of five thousand tons per year are cobalt, vanadium, and the rare earths. 

In the late 1950 s two groups - one at ICI (ref. 1) and the other at the Mid-Century Corporation (ref. 2) - independently discovered that p-xylene is oxidized to terephthalic acid in almost quantitative yield when soluble bromides are used together with cobalt and manganese catalysts in acetic acid solvent at temperatures > 130 °C (ref. 3). This discovery formed the basis for what became known as the Mid-Century process and later, when the Mid-Century Corporation was acquired by Amoco, as the Amoco MC process for the commercial production of terephthalic acid. A large part of the ca. 6 million tons of the latter that are manufactured annually, on a worldwide basis, are produced via this method. This makes it the most important catalytic oxidation process (ref. 4). 

Chalkley, M. E. Toirac, I. L. The acid pressure leach process for nickel and cobalt laterite. Part I review of operations at Moa. Hydrometallurgy and Refining of Nickel and Cohalt, Annual Hydrometallurgy Meeting of CIM, 27th, Sudbury, Ont., Aug. 17-20, 1997, 341-353. 

With an annual production of up to 9.3 million tons in 1998, hydroformylation is the most important homogeneously catalyzed reaction [20,21], The reaction is performed almost exclusively by the use of cobalt or rhodium catalysts. The advantages of rhodium catalysts are milder reaction conditions and better n/iso ratios in product distribution. The toxicity of rhodium compounds as well as the high rhodium price [22] (between 20 and 75 g during the last five years) demand an efficient catalyst recycling. 

Ritcey, G. M. Ashbrook, A. W. Lucas, B. H. Development of a solvent extraction process for the separation of cobalt from nickel, presented at the Annual AIME Meeting, San Francisco, 1972. CIM Bull., January 1975. 

Hundreds of different carboxylic acids have been produced via this method (1), The industrial process, dubbed the Amoco MC process, produces billions of pounds of terephthalic add, isophthalic add and trimellitic add annually. Industrial processes using just cobalt as the catalyst rather than Co/Mn/Br have also been developed (2-3). The characteristics of the reaction suggest that it is, at least partially, a free radical chain mechanism involving peroxy... 

Zinc Alloys. There has been considerable worldwide activity in the area of plating zinc alloys. This interest results from efforts to improve the corrosion resistance of automobiles and automotive components without using cadmium (150). The use of zinc—alloy plated coil for automotive body steel originated in Japan, has spread through Europe, and more recendy has come to the United States. Three zinc alloys dominate the interest zinc—nickel, zinc—iron, and zinc—cobalt. Europe produces predominantly zinc—nickel. In Japan, zinc—nickel and zinc—iron are more popular (151). The annual worldwide nickel consumption for zinc—nickel alloy plating has been estimated at 2700—3175 metric tons (152). In the United States, consumption is estimated at about 225 metric tons for this purpose. Alloys are generally 6—12% nickel. Usage is expected to increase. 

The hydroformylation of olefins is one of the largest and most prominent industrial catalytic processes, producing millions of tons of aldehydes annually [102]. Initially, cobalt-carbonyl species were used as catalyst, though rhodium complexes modified by special ligands, usually phosphines, are predominantly used nowadays. Over the last two decades, continued development of new phosphine and phosphite ligands has allowed significant advances in hydroformylation chemistry, especially with respect to catalyst selectivity and stability [103]. 

However, on a process scale isotopes suffer the disadvantages of low dose rates, which limit process flow. A large cobalt source, for example, delivers about 10 kGy hr-1, while rates as high as 1 kGy s 1 are common with accelerators. A further problem of isotopes is that the common 60Co source has a 5.27-year half-life. It thus loses 12.5% of its activity annually. Economic analyses have shown that when cobalt replacement costs are accounted for, e-beams are more cost-effective sources for generating the absorbed doses usually necessary for treatment [51]. 

Uses.—Cobalt has not hitherto been utilised to any important extent in the industries, but Canada is making systematic efforts to develop its utility in view of the fact that rich stores of cobalt ores are found in that country. A few years ago practically the only use for cobalt was the production of the blue colour in the glass ana ceramic industries, and for the production of a blue paint. For these industries an annual production of 300 or 400 tons of cobalt sufficed.2... 

Hydrotreating catalysts are usually alumina supported molybdenum based catalysts with cobalt or nickel promotors. By 1990, the demand for hydrotreating catalysts is expected to reach 80,000,000 pounds annually (1). The increased demand for these catalysts and the limitations on the availability and supply of the active metals increase the urgency to develop effective catalyst regeneration techniques. 

Presently, about 4-5 million t/a of aldehydes or derivatives arc produced annually using processes based on either a homogeneous cobalt or a rhodium catalyst system. 

Canada s most productive district is in the Canadian shield at Cobalt, Ontario. Nearly 97% of the silver values in this pre-Cambrian age ore were found as great slabs of nearly pure silver. One slab was 474 kg. The huge open-pit Kidd Creek Mine has had an annual output of over 80 t of silver. 

This produces a residue consisting of sulfides and arsenides of Co, Ni, and Cu. Heating of the residues in the presence of NaCl causes the metals to be converted into water-soluble chlorides from which the metals are obtained by electrolysis. Current annual world production of cobalt is in the order of 15 000 tonnes, corresponding to about 1% of the annual copper production. About 20% of the cobalt comes from recycling (Saager 1984). 

The solubility of cobalt is pH-dependent. In acid soils, cobalt is more mobile than in alkaline soils. Annually, approximately 21000 tons of cobalt are transported by rivers to the oceans, and about the same amount is deposited in deep-sea sediments, the Co content of which is in the order of 74 mg kg (Turekian and Wedepohl 1961). The natural transport of cobalt is not significantly affected by mining activities and industrial uses of the element. In uncontaminated samples of fresh water, cobalt concentrations are generally low, ranging from 0.1 to 10 jig L (Forstner and Wittmann... 

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