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Comparison of Electrowinning Technologies

Comparison of Electrowinning Technologies

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Conference Paper
Full-text available
Halide hydrometallurgy is widely recognised as offering superior economic and environmental outcomes for the leaching of a wide range of mineral concentrates: copper, nickel, rare earths, lead, zinc, silver, gold, PGMs and more. Halide leaching is significantly faster than sulphate. Extremely high extraction can be achieved without the need for hig...

Citations

... That problem has been solved by the Halion TM electrowinning cell, presented at ALTA 2023 (5) . This novel design is the world's first practical electrowinning cell design for the continuous production and recovery of high purity copper metal from the cuprous chloride state, producing copper as dendritic powder for melting/pressing into product. ...
... The 2023 ALTA paper (5) described the status of the Halion Loop TM technology and the breakthrough Halion TM electrowinning cell for the continuous production of high purity copper from mixed halide electrolyte. ...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The extraction of minerals using chloride lixiviants has been thoroughly investigated and proven to offer major advantages in low-cost, highly versatile minerals processing, with an extremely low carbon footprint. Loop Hydrometallurgy continues to innovate in advanced halide-based minerals processing. The Halion Loop TM employs mixed halides to extract copper, nickel, cobalt, lead, zinc, silver, gold, PGMs REEs and other metals from a broad range of concentrates, tailings and industrial waste materials. It operates at atmospheric pressure and less than 100 degrees Celsius, with no noxious gas emissions and no liquid effluents. In its latest breakthrough, Loop Hydrometallurgy has proposed an entirely new form of leaching that significantly extends the capabilities of economic and efficient processing for refractory materials. This new form of leaching has undergone successful initial trials in the extraction of cobalt from pyrite tailings. This new technology offers the prospect of near reagent-less leaching for materials that would otherwise be expected to be highly acid-or alkali-consuming by conventional hydrometallurgical processes. By extending the capabilities of the extraction step, the Halion Loop TM has also been shown to enable significant efficiencies to be captured upstream of the concentrate, at the mine and mill. This paper will discuss the outcomes of initial studies of the breakthrough technology, as well as some of the broader potential applications in critical and battery minerals, gold processing, the stabilisation of arsenic, and beyond. It will also discuss the outcomes of economic analysis for processing non-traditional concentrate feedstocks, including low grade and polymetallic bulk concentrates, and materials containing high levels of arsenic.