Recovery of residual copper from heap leach residues

摘要

A process for recovering copper from heap leach residues, the process comprising treating heap leach residues to provide treated heap leach residues providing improved permeability of a heap of the treated heap leach residues, and leaching the heap of the treated heap leach residues with a leaching solution. Treating the heap leach residues includes: a) blending the heap leach residues with additional material to provide a blend; or b) agglomerating the heap leach residues; or c) both blending the heap leach residues with additional material and agglomerating.

主权项

1. A process for recovering copper from a copper sulphide ore extracted from a mine and previously leached in a heap to provide heap leach residues, the process comprising:
treating the heap leach residues to provide treated heap leach residues having a permeability to air at least an order of magnitude greater than the permeability to air of a heap of untreated heap leach residue, when permeability is measured in Darcy units, the treated heap leach residues providing improved permeability of a heap of the treated heap leach residues; and leaching the heap of the treated heap leach residues with a leaching solution; wherein treating the heap leach residues comprises blending the heap leach residues with additional unleached material from the mine, the additional unleached material comprising at least one of: crushed ore, run-of-mine ore, low grade ore, marginal ore or waste rock, wherein the additional unleached material is obtained from a hypogene ore body or supergene ore body and has a copper content below a cutoff grade of the mine, to provide a blend of previously heap-leached copper sulphide ore and the additional unleached material from the mine, the blend comprising more than about 50% and less than about 100% of the previously heap-leached copper sulphide ore.