The project is based on a process to recover soluble copper and other minerals from tailings and rubbles which concept won the first prize in an ideas contest, sponsored by the big mining industry and validated by 2 universities’ labs, which got a protection patent until 2035. Our process retrieves close to 100% soluble copper from tailings in 1 hour leaching, which is not retrieved today.
The project will focus on tailings processing. In Chile, 757 deposits have been identified, among active and abandoned, with an approximate tonnage of 14 billion tons.
Considering that the tailings are distributed throughout the country, the project defines a portable reactor to carry out the on-site processing.
Laboratory tests at the Universidad Católica del Norte and at the Universidad de Santiago, reached a copper recovery close to 100% in 4 hours in rubble and 1 hour in tailings, respectively.
We have a process to recover minerals from tailings or rubble by leaching rubble, which is protected by patent until 2035.
