BACKGROUND: In recent years, there has been an increasing focus on the hydrometallurgical processing of molybdenite, with the decline of high-grade and easily handled molybdenum minerals. In this work, the technology of molybdenum extraction from molybdenite concentrate using sodium chloride electrolyte and its kinetics have been investigated. RESULTS: The results show that leaching temperature, sodium chlorate and sulfuric acid concentration significantly affected molybdenum extraction compared with other experimental parameters. With a NaClO3 concentration of 320.39 g L-1; sulfuric acid concentration of 73.3 g L-1, a liquid-solid ratio of 5:1, temperature 70 degrees C, agitation speed 500 rpm, the molybdenum dissolution rate achieved was 99.67% in 240 min. The activation energy of the dissolution reaction was 104.57 kJ mol-1. CONCLUSION: The synthesized sodium chlorate electrolyte, an effective leaching agent, was used directly for the treatment of molybdenite concentrate. Removal of the crystallization and purification of sodium chlorate significantly reduced production costs. The results indicated that the inner diffusion and external diffusion control models were not suitable for this leaching reaction and the dissolution process was controlled by chemical reaction. Copyright (c) 2012 Society of Chemical Industry