Toward a more sustainable mining future with electrokinetic in situ leaching

Evelien Martens; Henning Prommer; Riccardo Sprocati; Jing Sun; Xianwen Dai; Rich Crane; James Jamieson; Pablo Ortega Tong; Massimo Rolle; Andy Fourie

doi:10.1126/sciadv.abf9971

Toward a more sustainable mining future with electrokinetic in situ leaching

Sci Adv. 2021 Apr 30;7(18):eabf9971. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abf9971. Print 2021 Apr.

Authors

Evelien Martens^{1

2}, Henning Prommer^{3

4}, Riccardo Sprocati⁵, Jing Sun^{1

4

6}, Xianwen Dai⁷, Rich Crane⁸, James Jamieson^{1

4}, Pablo Ortega Tong^{1

4}, Massimo Rolle⁵, Andy Fourie²

Affiliations

¹ School of Earth Sciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.
² Department of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.
³ School of Earth Sciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia. henning.prommer@csiro.au.
⁴ CSIRO Land and Water, Private Bag 5, Wembley, WA 6913, Australia.
⁵ Department of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Bygningstorvet, Building 115, Kgs. Lyngby 2800, Denmark.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Environmental Geochemistry, Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guiyang 550081, China.
⁷ CSIRO Mineral Resources, Australian Minerals Research Centre, 7 Conlon St, Waterford, WA 6152, Australia.
⁸ Camborne School of Mines, College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences, University of Exeter, Penryn, Cornwall TR10 9FE, UK.

Abstract

Metals are currently almost exclusively extracted from their ore via physical excavation. This energy-intensive process dictates that metal mining remains among the foremost CO₂ emitters and mine waste is the single largest waste form by mass. We propose a new approach, electrokinetic in situ leaching (EK-ISL), and demonstrate its applicability for a Cu-bearing sulfidic porphyry ore. In laboratory-scale experiments, Cu recovery was rapid (up to 57 weight % after 94 days) despite low ore hydraulic conductivity (permeability = 6.1 mD; porosity = 10.6%). Multiphysics numerical model simulations confirm the feasibility of EK-ISL at the field scale. This new approach to mining is therefore poised to spearhead a new paradigm of metal recovery from currently inaccessible ore bodies with a markedly reduced environmental footprint.

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