Hydrometallurgical process for the treatment of copper bearing ore

摘要

A hydrometallurgical process for recovering copper from copper bearing ores or fractions, by a process of first wetting and sulfatizing the ore with controlled amounts of H2SO4 and water, followed by acid curing and repulping to sulfatize a substantial portion of the copper in the ore. Also, the fine and coarse fractions can be classified, followed by pile leaching the coarse fraction, preferably reusing the cycled H2SO4 solution obtained during the copper recovery process. Since the coarse fraction is classified from the fine fraction, the pile leaching process is performed at very high specific flows, which substantially reduces the leaching period as compared with that of conventional pile leaching.