The Recovery of Copper From Dilute Process Streams

Treating copper ores by heap-leaching and similar hydrometallurgical means is a time-honored practice, which was well known even in the 19th century. Later the method lost ground to better ore dressing processes, particularly selective. flotation. More recently there has been a distinct reversion to leaching techniques, particularly for scavenging operations in old mining stopes, in connection with LPF systems, irrigation of tailings dumps and similar situations. These hydrometallurgical techniques will gain further ground because processing is simple and permits better extraction of copper, particularly from low-grade or partly oxidized ores. In the lixiviation of primary ores at some major operations, copper-bearing liquors may undergo re-circulation in heap-leaching arrangements or the ores may be subjected to systematic percolation treatment. The liquors resulting from this source usually are quite strong (above 10 gpl copper) and copper would normally be reclaimed by electrowinning or cementation. These processes fall out- side the scope of this paper which is concerned with recovery of copper from weak 1iquor.s containing from 0.1 to about 3 gpl copper.