Manganese leaching and recovery from pyrolusite ore, was investigated by using H2SO4 as a leachant and H2O2 as a reducing agent. The effects of agitation, H2O2 concentration, H2SO4 concentration, liquid/solid mass ratio. leaching time and reaction temperature on manganese recovery were studied. The optimal leaching conditions were determined as 4.0 M H2SO4 and 0.8 M H2O2 using liquid-solid mass ratio of 5.0 for 90 min at 40 degrees C and ore particle size of 44-37 mu m. Under these conditions, the leaching efficiency was 92.0% for Mn. It was found that the use of H2O2 as a reducing agent for the reductive leaching of manganese increased the leaching rate. Analysis of the experimental results indicted that the leaching process is fitted by a chemical reaction model in temperature range 20-40 degrees C, and at higher temperature, 45-70 degrees C, the diffusion reaction model prevails. Activation energies for these models were calculated to be 49.5 kJ.mol(-1) and 10.6 kJ.mol(-1), respectively. Based on the experimental results, a separation method and flow sheet were developed and tested to separate high purity MnSO4 center dot H2O (>99.4%). Comparison between the present results and that reported in the literature are given. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.