Copper claim

Nippon Mining & Metals has developed a new process that it claims effectively enables copper to be recovered from low grade copper concentrates.

Now, due to promising results from laboratory tests, the company has decided to construct and operate a pilot plant to see if can commercialise the so-called “N-Chlo” process on a large scale. 

The pilot plant itself will be built in Australia in co-operation with Newcrest Mining, Australia’s largest gold producer, which has many mines that would be able to take advantage of the new process.

Today, the exploitation of mines that produce low copper grade concentrates is difficult because existing hydrometallurgical processing techniques cannot effectively recover precious metals in such concentrates.

Nippon Mining claim that that’s not so with its N-Chlo process. Based on the company’s chloride leaching and solvent extraction technology, the new process can recover such precious metals effectively, enabling mines that produce such type of concentrate to be exploited.