Insights into ferric leaching of low grade metal sulfide-containing ores in an unsaturated ore bed using X-ray computed tomography

Dobson, Katherine J.; Harrison, Sue T.L.; Lin, Qingyang; Ní Bhreasail, Aine; Fagan-Endres, Marijke A.; Neethling, Stephen J.; Lee, Peter D.; Cilliers, Jan J.

doi:10.3390/min7050085

Insights into ferric leaching of low grade metal sulfide-containing ores in an unsaturated ore bed using X-ray computed tomography

Dobson, Katherine J.; Harrison, Sue T.L.; Lin, Qingyang; Ní Bhreasail, Aine; Fagan-Endres, Marijke A.; Neethling, Stephen J.; Lee, Peter D.; Cilliers, Jan J.

Authors

Katherine J. Dobson

Sue T.L. Harrison

Qingyang Lin

Aine Ní Bhreasail

Marijke A. Fagan-Endres

Stephen J. Neethling

Peter D. Lee

Jan J. Cilliers

Abstract

The distribution of the metal-bearing mineral grains within a particulate ore prepared for leaching, and the impact of this spatial heterogeneity on overall extraction efficiency is of key importance to a mining industry that must continuously target ever-reducing grades and more complex ore bodies. If accessibility and recovery of the target minerals is to be improved, a more detailed understanding of the behaviour of the system must be developed. We present an in situ analysis using X-ray computed tomography to quantify the rates of volume reduction of sulfide mineral grains in low grade agglomerated copper bearing ores during a miniature laboratory scale column leaching experiment. The data shows the scale of the heterogeneity in the leaching behaviour, with an overall reduction of sulphide mineral grains of 50%, but that this value masks significant mm3 to cm3 scale variability in reduction. On the scale of individual ore fragments, leaching efficiency ranged from 22% to 99%. We use novel quantitative methods to determine the volume fraction of the sulfide that is accessible to the leachate solution.

Citation

Dobson, K. J., Harrison, S. T., Lin, Q., Ní Bhreasail, A., Fagan-Endres, M. A., Neethling, S. J., …Cilliers, J. J. (2017). Insights into ferric leaching of low grade metal sulfide-containing ores in an unsaturated ore bed using X-ray computed tomography. Minerals, 7(5), Article 85. https://doi.org/10.3390/min7050085

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	May 16, 2017
Online Publication Date	May 22, 2017
Publication Date	May 22, 2017
Deposit Date	May 19, 2017
Publicly Available Date	May 23, 2017
Journal	Minerals
Publisher	MDPI
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	7
Issue	5
Article Number	85
DOI	https://doi.org/10.3390/min7050085

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© 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).