HYDROMETALLURGY Developing alternative process technology is not just nice, but necessary
s demand for basic metals
grows, engineers and scientists are looking for new ways to extract these elements from ores. The easy stuff has already been found and processed. One of the main challenges of mining and minerals processing companies is now the economical processing of low-grade ores, says Steve Rogers, managing director of the Parker Center for Integrated Metallurgy Solutions (Perth, Western Australia; www.parkercentre.com.au). Rogers says other challenges include water and energy use, and the increasingly stringent requirements regarding the environmental performance of mining and processing activities. Minerals processing companies are looking at flowsheets that can use poorer quality water, such as tailings wastewater or saline-process source waters, he says. For example, copper has been traditionally obtained from chalcopyrite (CuFeS2) the main copper ore by smelting. Most copper is still recovered from chalcopyrite ores by smelting. However, smelting is energy-intensive and entails high capital costs and long construction times. Smelters can also emit considerable amounts of SO2 gas a main cause of acid rain. Therefore, one of todays main challenges is to develop commercially
viable chalcopyrite-leaching technologies and this is a key objective of
many mining and minerals processing companies. Currently about 20% of world copper is produced from large-scale heap leaching of low-grade copper oxide ores followed by solvent extraction (SX) and electrowinning (EW). A small number of plants treat secondary copper sulfides via pressure leaching, followed by SX-EW. To help meet the challenges of the minerals industry, the Parker Center undertakes research with the cooperation of CSIRO (Melbourne, Australia; www.csiro.au) and several universities. Its main projects include: developing a viable heap bioleaching process for treating low-grade chalcopyrite ores; controlling ferrihydrite precipitation in the zinc and nickel industries; and developing new technologies for the economic processing of nickel laterite ores.
Tackling nickel laterite ores
Most nickel has been traditionally
obtained from nickel sulfide ores, even though nickel laterite ores are the most abundant. However, technical challenges have so far delayed the exploitation of laterite ores. As the reserves of sulfide ores dwindled, companies have focused on developing
FIGURE 1. Outotecs HydroCopper process is undergoing comprehensive testing at this plant at
Pori, near Helsinki, Finland
technologies for the economical exploitation of laterite ore reserves.
The companies involved with minerals processing have responded vigorously to those challenges and have developed many novel technologies, especially leaching technologies. Several of those technologies have undergone extensive testing and are now beginning commercial operation or are on the verge of commercialization. A novel atmospheric leaching process for copper concentrates, called Galvanox, is offered by Bateman Engineering N.V. (Amsterdam, the Netherlands; www.bateman.com), which has its engineering center in Johannesburg, South Africa. Galvanox is a galvanically-assisted atmospheric leaching of primary copper concentrates originally developed by researchers David Dixon and Alain Tshilombo of the University of British Columbia, Canada. Bateman has obtained a license from the university to implement the technology (for flowsheet, see online version of this article). Chalcopyrite is commonly associated with pyrite (FeS2). The enhancement of chalcopyrite leaching rate, when in contact with pyrite, has been attributed to galvanic interaction between chalcopyrite and pyrite. Pyrite acts as the cathodic site for oxygen and ferric ion reduction reac-