Multimodal assessment of the curing of agglomerated ores in the presence of chloride ions

Abstract

Agglomeration and subsequent curing are widely used as pre-treatment for ore prior to heap leaching as it both improve the permeability of the heap and brings leaching solution into close contact with the ore, initializing the leaching reactions. Despite its widespread use there have been limited studies into the processes occurring within the agglomerates over the curing process. In this study both destructive and non-destructive imaging techniques are used to assess both the physical and chemical changes occurring within the agglomerates as they cure.The SEM/EDX is one of the most popular imaging techniques for mineral samples. It can only be carried out once for a given sample due to its destructive preparation method but provides detailed mineralogical information. A complementary tool is X-ray Microtomography (XMT), which is non-destructive and can be used to image the same object multiple times over the course of the experiment. Its main limitation, though, is that the acquired images are of X-ray attenuation values and need to be independently assigned to different mineral classifications based on, for instance, the corresponding SEM images. Combining the ability of SEM/EDX measurements to identify different mineral phases with the 3D time resolved XMT measurements can thus produce superior results to those achievable using either of the modalities on their own.In this study, we propose a methodology for quantifying the formation and depletion of mineral components of agglomerates. These methodologies will be demonstrated in ores agglomerated using a combination of sulphuric acid and ferric sulphate as well as in samples in which sodium chloride is added to the agglomeration recipe. The curing process was tracked beyond the typical time scales used industrially, highlighting that the presence of chloride ions makes a substantial difference to the chemical and structural evolution of the sample. Over this curing process most of the observed leaching occurs during the first 20 days in the presence of NaCl, while there is virtually no metal dissolution for the standard samples without NaCl. During curing the solution does not leave the agglomerates other than via evaporation. Thus, reprecipitation of metal containing mineral species was observed, especially near the agglomerate surfaces. In the presence of NaCl precipitated Cu-S-O-Cl complexes were observed suggesting that the chloride ions in solution are playing a key role in the leaching process. After 65 days of curing, the samples were water washed in order to remove soluble species, extracting 50% of the original sulphides from the agglomerates containing sodium chloride, but only 20% from the other agglomerates.