Over the past decade, 43 million tonnes of copper have been mined but never processed. Instead, the metal lies trapped in giant piles of waste rock next to dozens of mines from Chile to Australia.
That lost copper -- too difficult to extract using conventional mining methods -- could ease a looming shortage of the metal that’s sent prices to the highest on record. Startup Jetti Resources said it has the technology to release that stranded metal.
The Colorado based company has developed a catalyst that can liberate copper from low-grade chalcopyrite ores -- which can have a metal content of well below 1 per cent -- by disrupting the sulfur metal bond of the mineral. Traditional leaching methods, which dissolve the metal to form a weak solution of copper sulphate, lead to a film forming over the copper in these ores, preventing it from being extracted.
Apparently the new process can be bolted on to existing plants and increase production by 20 per cent to 100 per cent depending on the type of operation, according to Jetti.
Processing millions of tonnes of copper that’s already been mined will extend the life of existing mines and allow new projects to process lower quality ore from the start.
Still, while Jetti’s innovation could extract millions of tonnes of copper
over the next three decades,
it won’t revolutionise production in the way new technologies did with shale or even nickel. Instead, it will help fill the looming supply gap.
“We’re unlocking a colossal, stranded resource, but we’re
not going to be doing it in an incredibly short period of time that swamps the industry with excessive production or at a dramatically lower cost than is currently done,” said Outwin.
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