Industrial Heap Bioleaching of Copper Sulfide Ore Started with Only Water Irrigation

Sulfuric acid solution containing ferric iron is the extractant for industrial heap bioleaching of copper sulfides. To start a heap bioleaching plant, sulfuric acid is usually added to the irrigation solution to maintain adequate acidity (pH 1.0–2.0) for copper dissolution. An industrial practice of heap bioleaching of secondary copper sulfide ore that began with only water irrigation without the addition of sulfuric acid was successfully implemented and introduced in this manuscript. The mineral composition and their behavior related to the production and consumption of sulfuric acid during the bioleaching in heaps was analyzed. This indicated the possibility of self-generating of sulfuric acid in heaps without exogenous addition. After proving by batches of laboratory tests, industrial measures were implemented to promote the sulfide mineral oxidation in heaps throughout the acidifying stages, from a pH of 7.0 to 1.0, thus sulfuric acid and iron was produced especially by pyrite oxidation. After acidifying of the heaps, adapted microbial consortium was inoculated and established in a leaching system. The launch of the bioleaching heap and finally the production expansion were realized without the addition of sulfuric acid, showing great efficiency under low operation costs.

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Bioleaching vs. Chloride Leaching: Real Advantages and Drawbacks for Primary Sulfides

Advanced Materials Research ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.1130.423 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 1130 ◽

pp. 423-426

Author(s):

Roberto A. Bobadilla-Fazzini ◽

Veronica Gautier ◽

Hector Jordan ◽

Pilar Parada

Keyword(s):

Cost Effective ◽

Sulfide Mineral ◽

Copper Extraction ◽

Copper Sulfides ◽

Economical Evaluation ◽

Sulfide Ore ◽

Chloride Leaching ◽

Copper Sulfide Ore ◽

Chloride Method ◽

Industrial State

Currently the vast majority of the world’s copper is obtained through sulfide mineral processing. Among the copper sulfides, chalcopyrite is the most economically relevant due to its abundance. Therefore, several technologies have been developed in order to achieve an efficient copper extraction from copper sulfides. Among these developments, the hydrometallurgical options of bioleaching as well as chemical chloride leaching are prevailing for secondary copper sulfides due to their good results at lab, pilot and industrial scale. Examples such as the Bacterial Thin-Layer technology developed by Minera Pudahuel in the ́80s (CL Patent 32025), as well as the Cuprochlor® process developed by Minera Michilla (CL Patent 45163), coming to the more recent “Heap leaching method” (US Patent WO2014030048A1) and the mixed version of the “Chloride method for bioleaching” patented by BHP Billiton (US Patent WO2012001501A1), are some examples that are currently being extended to the efficient copper extraction from chalcopyrite. In this work, we have compared at lab-scale BioSigma’s bioleaching technology and the industrial state-of-art chloride leaching for a mainly chalcopyritic copper sulfide ore. The metallurgical and microbial results, and the economical evaluation and comparative analysis clearly show that bioleaching presents several advantages compared to chloride leaching, being the biotechnological option more cost-effective and therefore industrially applicable.

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Sulfation Kinetics of Low-Grade Nickel–Copper Sulfide Ore in the Sulfuric Acid Roasting Process

Russian Journal of Non-Ferrous Metals ◽

10.3103/s1067821220010034 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 61 (1) ◽

pp. 27-41

Author(s):

Fuhui Cui ◽

Wenning Mu ◽

Yuchun Zhai ◽

Xueyi Guo

Keyword(s):

Sulfuric Acid ◽

Copper Sulfide ◽

Low Grade ◽

Nickel Copper ◽

Roasting Process ◽

Sulfide Ore ◽

Copper Sulfide Ore ◽

Kinetics Of

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Pyrite oxidation and copper sulfide ore leaching by halotolerant, thermotolerant bacteria

Hydrometallurgy ◽

10.1016/j.hydromet.2010.03.025 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 104 (3-4) ◽

pp. 432-436 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

P.R. Norris ◽

C.S. Davis-Belmar ◽

J.Le C. Nicolle ◽

L.A. Calvo-Bado ◽

V. Angelatou

Keyword(s):

Copper Sulfide ◽

Pyrite Oxidation ◽

Sulfide Ore ◽

Thermotolerant Bacteria ◽

Copper Sulfide Ore

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Experimental Study of Floatation on Non-Independent Copper Oxide Ore from Jilin Province in China

Advanced Materials Research ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.581-582.851 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 581-582 ◽

pp. 851-855

Author(s):

Rong Dong Deng ◽

Quan Jun Liu ◽

Xiao Feng Yang ◽

Ting Hu ◽

Feng Hong Ye

Keyword(s):

Copper Oxide ◽

Copper Sulfide ◽

Jilin Province ◽

High Grade ◽

High Recovery ◽

Copper Ore ◽

Sulfide Ore ◽

Mineralogical Study ◽

Oxide Minerals ◽

Copper Sulfide Ore

Through the processing of mineralogical study on a copper ore from Jilin province in China, it found that the copper exist mostly with the form of chalcopyrite, and others exist with the form of copper oxide minerals which with complex ingredient. The copper oxide minerals are due to the altered of the edge of chalcopyrite, and have not formed the independent copper oxide ore. It belongs to unconventional hard-to-beneficiate copper ore. Coarse grinding fineness and bulk floatation was used to recover the copper oxide ore and copper sulfide ore by using amino double phosphoric acid and butylamine dithiophosphate as the collector. This process was similar to the carrier flotation and achieved an effective processing of the copper oxide ore and obtained a high-grade copper concentrate assaying 15.8% with a high recovery of 82.4%.

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Characterization of microbial community in industrial bioleaching heap of copper sulfide ore at Monywa mine, Myanmar

Hydrometallurgy ◽

10.1016/j.hydromet.2016.07.007 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 164 ◽

pp. 355-361 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Yan Jia ◽

Heyun Sun ◽

Defang Chen ◽

Hongshan Gao ◽

Renman Ruan

Keyword(s):

Microbial Community ◽

Copper Sulfide ◽

Sulfide Ore ◽

Copper Sulfide Ore

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Investigation of Bioleaching of a Low Grade Nickel-Cobalt-Copper Sulfide Ore with High Magnesium as Olivine and Serpentine from Lao

Advanced Materials Research ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.825.396 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 825 ◽

pp. 396-400 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Bo Wei Chen ◽

Liu Lu Cai ◽

Biao Wu ◽

Xue Liu ◽

Jian Kang Wen

Keyword(s):

Copper Sulfide ◽

Nickel Sulfide ◽

Low Grade ◽

Nickel Cobalt ◽

Nickel Silicate ◽

Copper Leaching ◽

Sulfide Ore ◽

Initial Ph ◽

Copper Sulfide Ore ◽

Cobalt Copper

Shake flask bioleaching of a low-grade nickel-cobalt-copper sulfide ore from Lao was investigated to test the technical feasibility to recovery metals from this ore. The mineralogical results indicated that the valuable minerals were disseminated finely and the ore had a low content of sulfur and high content of iron and magnesium, which was very harmful for bioleaching. The effects of different parameters such as the amount of acid addition, inoculation volume, initial pH, temperature and leaching time on the bioleaching performance of the ore were evaluated after pre-leaching with dilute acid. The results showed that nickel, cobalt, copper leaching rates reached 81.61%, 80.75%, 70.97% at 33 °C and 83.40%, 82.13%, 70.34% at 45 °C. The mineralogical analysis of the leaching residues revealed that the leaching rate of nickel sulfide was more than 92% and the unleached nickel was mainly present as nickel silicate.

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Research on Flotation of Copper Sulfide Ore in Yunnan Province

Applied Mechanics and Materials ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/amm.522-524.1471 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 522-524 ◽

pp. 1471-1475

Author(s):

Tie Min Zhang ◽

Jian Jun Fang ◽

Tai Guo Jiang ◽

Shan Wang ◽

Ying Bo Mao

Keyword(s):

Experimental Research ◽

Copper Sulfide ◽

Yunnan Province ◽

Separation Process ◽

Process Conditions ◽

Successful Recovery ◽

Sulfide Ore ◽

Test Requirements ◽

Copper Sulfide Ore

Floatation experimental research is carried out on a certain complicated ore containing mixed sulphides in Yannan province. For the characteristics of the mine and the scene of the test requirements, the use of mixed flotation-separation process has achieved a successful recovery of useful elements. Combination inhibitors can effectively achieve the separation of copper and sulfur .Under the proper process conditions ,the good technical indexes were obtained.

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Bio-Heap Leaching of Primary Copper Sulfide Ore by JOGMEC

Solid State Phenomena ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/ssp.262.99 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 262 ◽

pp. 99-102

Author(s):

Tatsuya Shinkawa ◽

Tadashi Chida ◽

So Furukawa ◽

Taro Kamiya

Keyword(s):

Copper Sulfide ◽

Heap Leaching ◽

Sulfide Ores ◽

High Iron Content ◽

Iron Oxidizing Bacteria ◽

Acid Consumption ◽

Sulfide Ore ◽

Leaching Solution ◽

Sulfur Oxidizing ◽

Copper Sulfide Ore

JOGMEC has been carrying out the study on primary copper sulfide ores leaching for recovering copper economically and efficiently by heap leaching. In our study, we have been using the primary copper sulfide ore produced in an IOCG deposit. The ore is characterized by high iron content and high acid consumption in leaching. For the optimization of the leaching, the conditions such as ore size, agglomeration, pH and irrigation rate of leaching solution were examined with column leach tests. The best result was over 80 % extraction of copper in 150 days with leaching solution of 1 M sulfuric acid and temperature of 45 °C. In this experiment, the fines of the ore sample were removed before putting it into the column to keep the permeability of the ore bed. In these column leach tests, the Fe2+/total-Fe ratio of PLS decreased gradually by the activity of naturally grown iron-oxidizing bacteria. The bacteria in PLS, which have the ability of iron-oxidizing and sulfur-oxidizing, were identified by next-generation sequencing as Acidithiobacillus caldus and Sulfobacillus thermosulfidooxidans. We also carried out bench-scale tests with about 200 tons of the primary copper sulfide ores. Iron-oxidizing and sulfur-oxidizing bacteria were identified in the leaching solution as same with column leach tests. It is considered that the bacteria worked in the leaching solution and on the surface of the ores.

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