Hydrometallurgy 165 (2016) 206–212

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Hydrometallurgy

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/hydromet

Heap leaching as a key technology for recovery of values from low-grade

ores – A brief overview
Jochen Petersen
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7700, Cape Town, South Africa

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Heap leaching technology is finding increasingly widespread application to recover values from low-grade ores,
Received 15 June 2015 especially in the gold and copper industry. The particular attractiveness of the process is the relatively low-cost
Received in revised form 27 August 2015 recovery of the target metal at site without the need for energy intensive comminution, providing the process
Accepted 3 September 2015
can be combined with a selective solution recovery technology (for example solvent extraction). However, this
Available online 8 September 2015
is contrasted with often slow and inefficient recovery, and technical issues such as poor heap permeability and
Keywords:
post-closure stability. This paper gives a comprehensive overview of the principles of heap leaching, offers a crit-
Heap leaching ical analysis of the economic viability of the process and how certain technical drawbacks of the technology affect
Recovery this, as well as providing a brief overview of emerging and potential future applications of the technology.
Leaching kinetics © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Economics
Gold
Copper
Zinc
Uranium
e-waste

1. Introduction
Heap leaching forms part of the group of technologies known as per-
colation leaching, which includes in situ leaching, dump leaching, heap
leaching and vat leaching (Bartlett, 1998; John, 2011). Common to all
these technologies is migration of leach solution through a fixed bed
of ore particles, on its path interacting with the solid, releasing the target
minerals into solution with which they are carried out of the bed. The
target species are subsequently recovered from solution using conven-
tional hydrometallurgical techniques, especially solvent extraction
(SX), before returning the barren solution to the leach process.
The distinction between the different processes lies in the degree of
preparation of the ore bed. In in situ leaching the ore remains under-
ground and solution flows either through the natural porosity of
the ore (typical for example for uranium bearing sandstones), or a
pore structure is created through some form of mechanical cracking
(in-situ blasting or hydraulic fracturing). Dump leaching refers to as-
mined ore that is piled in rock depositories (‘dumps’), which are irrigat-
ed with leach solution that percolates through the bed and is collected
at the base for further treatment. This process is applied usually only
to very low-grade waste rock as a ‘value-add’, since the costs of
installing the irrigation system and treating the resulting stream are
marginal. Due to the absence of any crushing prior to stacking, the
E-mail address: Jochen.petersen@uct.ac.za.
particle size ranges from a few centimetres to large boulders of one
metre and more, and consequently dump leaching is associated with
poor extractions (20–30%). In heap leaching the ore is crushed, usually
to below 1 in. (25 mm), and heaps are much more carefully engineered
to maximise percolation of leach solution through them. The higher
investment in operating the process is offset by significantly higher re-
coveries (typically N 70%) and the process is applied often to low- to in-
termediate grade ores. Heaps are also operated for limited time periods
before being removed or abandoned as a permanent deposit. Finally, vat
leaching refers to placing more finely crushed ore (1–10 mm) in a large
basin where it is subsequently flooded with leach solution and left to
react, before draining the solution again for treatment and removing
the ore for final storage.
Heap leaching is practised all over the world for three key applica-
tions: cyanide leaching of gold ores, acid leaching for copper oxide
ores and oxidative acid leaching of secondary copper sulphide ores, in-
variably with the assistance of certain microorganisms. A few heap
leach operations for uranium also exist (acid and alkali leaching), al-
though the technology is less common, partly due to environmental
concerns (Scheffel, 2002). Uranium heap leaching has been pioneered
since the 1950s, whereas both, copper oxide and gold/silver heap
leaching emerged in the US from the late 1960s (Kappes, 2002;
Bartlett, 1998). Large scale copper heap leaching commenced in Chile
from the 1980s, and sulphide heap leaching emerged essentially as a
consequence of acid leaching from mixed oxide/sulphide ores from
the 1990s (Watling, 2006).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.hydromet.2015.09.001
0304-386X/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 J. Petersen / Hydrometallurgy 165 (2016) 206–212
2. Principles of heap leaching
A detailed description of the heap leach process and the underlying
mechanisms has been given elsewhere (Petersen and Dixon, 2007a,
2007b; Watling, 2006; Bartlett, 1998), and only some key aspects are
discussed here. Fig. 1 shows in a schematic representation a typical cop-
per sulphide heap leach circuit – the principle is the same for other heap
leach processes.
A heap is a constructed pile of crushed, and in most cases agglomer-
ated, rock material built on an impermeable under-liner fitted with a
solution collection system. Where sulphide minerals are targeted, aera-
tion pipes are also placed underneath the heap. The heap is stacked by
conveyor belt; truck dumping is also practiced, but generally results in
undesirable compaction of the heap surface by the trucks. Heap heights
are typically 6–10 m, but taller heaps are also common to reduce the
footprint of the operation. The heap is irrigated from the top surface, ei-
ther by sprinklers, sprays or drip emitters.
Typical irrigation rates are in the order of 5–20 L/m2/h, and aeration,
where present, in to order of 0.1–0.5 m3/m2/h. Irrigation is mostly con-
tinuous, but intermittent (on-off) schemes are used in some operations.
Solution percolates downwards through the crushed ore bed (typical
top particle size is 3/4 in. to 1 in. (19–25 mm)) where it partially satu-
rates pore spaces and partially migrates through the bed in discrete
flow channels. Where aeration is present, air migrates upwards
counter-currently to solution through unsaturated void spaces. Mineral
grains contained in the rock interact with chemical species in the solu-
tion (introduced with the feed) to dissolve and release dissolved species
into solution, which are then transported to the base of the heap and re-
covered as pregnant leach solution (PLS) in the solution collection sys-
tem. Target metals are then recovered from the PLS, and the barren
solution is made up with fresh reagents and returned to the heap.
Three key types of chemistry are employed in heap leaching at
present: sulphuric acid leaching predominantly of copper oxides, alkali
cyanide leaching of gold/silver bearing ores and oxidative sulphuric acid
leaching of secondary copper sulphides (usually in the context of super-
gene porphyry ores). The latter process is invariably catalysed by micro-
organisms, which colonise within the heap bed (Demergasso et al.,
2005), and facilitate the oxidation of ferrous to ferric by atmospheric
oxygen as well as the oxidation of reduced sulphur intermediates
(S2− 2−
n , S2O3 , etc) to sulphate (Sand et al., 2001). Bio-oxidation occurs
naturally, but in some operations is promoted through the deliberate
inoculation of heaps with microbial cultures (Gericke et al., 2011).
Heap bio-leaching has also been demonstrated for the pre-oxidation
of refractory gold ores prior to cyanide leaching (Logan et al., 2007).
At the particle level, heap-leaching is governed by the migration of
reactive species into and dissolved species out of pores and cracks,
which is based on molecular diffusion, invariably a very slow process
(Sánchez-Chacón and Lapidus, 1997). Overall leach kinetics in a heap
are a complex interplay between reagent transport to and from site,
Fig. 1. Schematic of a typical copper sulphide heap leach circuit.
207
gas–liquid mass-transfer between the air and solution phases, as well
as migration through stagnant liquid in agglomerates and through par-
ticle pores. Further effects are microbial colonisation behaviour, mineral
location and liberation within particles, mineral reaction kinetics as well
as generation and dissipation of reaction heat (through exothermic
sulphide leaching) (Petersen and Dixon, 2007a).
Leach periods typically extend to 60–100 days for heap cyanidation,
4–6 months of acid copper leaching, and 1–3 years for secondary copper
sulphides. The long leach times, especially of sulphide minerals, has re-
sulted in this technology being employed only for low-grade ores for
which other technologies, requiring a higher degree of comminution,
are uneconomical. Further, to achieve meaningful overall production
rates, very large inventories of ore need to be kept under leach at the
same time, occupying a sizeable footprint and solution inventory for op-
eration. As a consequence, many heap operations employ multiple lifts,
with new ore being stacked on top of spent heaps (Bartlett, 1998;
Scheffel, 2002).
The PLS concentrations of the target metals are usually low (2–
10 g/L for Cu, ppm levels for Au) and, especially in acid leach solu-
tions, many impurities are present. Selective recovery of copper by
the highly selective SX reagents, and of gold cyanide onto activated
carbon ensure the success of heap leaching of these commodities.
Raffinate solution is, after make-up, recycled to the heap. As a result
there is a gradual build-up of dissolved species (especially Al, Mg and
Fe sulphates), which at critical concentrations may begin to precipi-
tate within the heap and consequently block pores and sprinkler
nozzles. Adverse effects of such dissolved species on bioleaching
microorganisms have also been observed (Ojumu et al., 2008), but
management of bleed solutions in industrial heaps is not systemati-
cally practiced.
Irrigation is usually discontinued after around 80–90% extraction
for gold and copper oxide leaching and 70–80% for copper sulphide
leaching. The reason is that extraction rates become so slow that the
costs of continued operation begin to outweigh the value of metal re-
covered. Spent heaps are either, reclaimed and deposited on a separate
waste ore dump to use the cleared lined ground for a new heap, or a
new lift is built on top of the old heap, with a view to using the existing
infrastructure and potentially recovering additional unleached values,
as leach solution from the fresh ore percolates through the spent ore un-
derneath (Scheffel, 2002).
Optimally, heap leaching should be a low-cost technology for the re-
covery of values from low-grade ores, suitable especially for remote
mine sites. However, the complexities that govern the leach kinetics
are often underestimated, resulting in underperforming heaps. Histori-
cally, treatment of low-grade ores by heap leaching was seen as an add-
on process to recover additional values from a particular ore body with-
out it determining the profitability of the operation as a whole. Hence,
less care was applied in their design, and the understanding of the
process was built more on operator experience than hard science.
208 J. Petersen / Hydrometallurgy 165 (2016) 206–212

As heap-leach-only operations are becoming more frequent, and op-

erating margins even of operations that employ multiple extractive
technologies (i.e. concentration of higher grade portion of the ore
body by flotation and heap leaching of the low-grade rest) are tighten-
ing, more attention needs to be focussed on improving heap perfor-
mance in terms of rate of extraction as well as total extraction. For this
it is first necessary to understand what limits heaps under current
operating conditions.
Extensive research by the author and others over recent years has
clearly identified a complex scenario of interactions in which different
mechanisms are limiting the overall process at different times and at
different places in the heap. It is convenient to distinguish between
four different scales of reaction-transport phenomena in a heap, with
different limitations applying in each case (Petersen and Dixon, 2007a,
2007b). This is illustrated in Table 1 for the case of heap bioleaching.

2.1. Heap-scale

Solution migrates through the ore bed principally in a downward

direction through the void spaces. While finer pores tend to become sat-
urated, larger pores remain unsaturated and over time solution flow be-
comes concentrated in random channels through unsaturated zones.
This does not mean that portions of the heap bed remain dry. Rather,
the heap bed contains zones of wet, but stagnant solution contained in
the interstitial spaces between particles, in between a network of chan-
nels of flowing solution and gas pores. An image of this network, taken
of a laboratory scale packed bed column using a high-resolution posi-
tron emission tomography (PET) scanner, is given in Fig. 2. It can clearly
be seen that the tracer follows discrete solution channels rather than
flowing homogenously through the wetted bed.
Gas transport through the heap bed is assumed to be principally up-
wards through unsaturated void spaces over which it competes with
the flowing aqueous phase. In heaps where no active aeration is present,
Table 1
Schematic representation of sub-processes in heap bioleaching (Petersen and Dixon,
2007b).
Fig. 2. PET scan of a 10 cm diameter × 40 cm long column filled with a copper porphyry ore
irrigated form a central dripper (picture taken at the PET/PEPT facility at iThemba Labs,
Western Cape, South Africa). The colour scale from red to blue directly relates to decreas-
ing tracer concentration.
it still occurs through thermal up-drafting — reaction heat released
through the leach reactions cause heating of the gaseous stream
which therefore accelerates, causing a thermal draught drawing in
cold air from the sides of the heap. But heat effects remain even if
aeration is provided by pipes from the base of the heap. Air on its way
up through the heap becomes saturated with water vapour, the more
so the higher the temperature. Moist air is the main mode of heat
transport from the bed and contributes to significant solution losses
by evaporation — however aeration can result in a homogenisation of
temperatures within a heap, leading to overall improvement of perfor-
mance (Dixon, 2000).

Level Sub-processes Illustration 2.2. Agglomerate scale

Heap scale • Solution flow
through packed bed A collection of particles held together by stagnant solution is referred
• Gas advection to as an agglomerate – in many heap operations ore agglomeration
• Water vapour is practiced for dust/fines control and introduction of leach reagent
transport (especially curing acid) prior to heap operation. During stacking, parti-
• Heat balance
cle agglomerates form further as they roll off the stacking face, often
resulting in an accumulation of larger particles and agglomerates near
Agglomerate • Gas adsorption
scale • Pore diffusion the bottom of the heap. It is not known, however, whether in the course
• Microbial growth of heap operation agglomerate structures created during stacking are
• Microbial retained, or merge into larger zones upon wetting. Some consolidation
attachment of the packing certainly takes place, as heaps commonly ‘slump’ over
• Microbial
the first few days of irrigation.
oxidation
Transport of dissolved chemical species as well as bacteria in the ag-
glomerate structure progresses primarily by diffusion; bulk migration
by capillary action occurs only initially upon wetting. Hence diffusion
Particle scale • Particle shape of reagents and reaction products through the stagnant agglomerate
effects zone can be a major rate-limiting effect during heap leaching and is
• Intra-particle critically dependent on the average size of the agglomerate zone. This
diffusion size can be understood to correspond to the average distance from the
• Particle and grain
size distribution
nearest flowing solution channel through which dissolved species can
enter and be removed.
Grain SCALE • Ferric/ferrous
reduction Microbial interactions take place within the agglomerate structure,
• Mineral oxidation as microbes cannot penetrate ore particles. Microbes colonise heaps
• Sulphur oxidation firmly attached to the mineral surface, surface associated or freely in so-
• Surface processes lution (Govender et al., 2013). Microbial growth relies on the uptake of
CO2 from the gas stream or carbonates in the ore dissolving in the acidic
environment. Microbial speciation in heaps is complex and community
structures vary widely depending on local conditions and over time.
 J. Petersen / Hydrometallurgy 165 (2016) 206–212
Limited availability of CO2 in the gas stream can be severely rate limiting
in tall heaps due to its low concentration in air (Petersen et al., 2010).
2.3. Particle-scale
Target minerals are embedded within the particles within a matrix
of gangue minerals. During leaching, reagents (acid, cyanide, ferric or
oxygen) need to migrate through pores and (micro) cracks in this ma-
trix to reach the relevant mineral phases, again by a process of diffusion.
Different from the agglomerate scale diffusion, however, the porosity of
a rock particle is substantially lower and hence few and usually tortuous
channels for this diffusion exist, slowing the process. Some of the min-
eral may in fact be inaccessible altogether. The study by Ghorbani
et al. (2013) has shown that the density of cracks is strongly related to
the mode of crushing and that in larger particles there is an inner core
that remains unaffected by crushing and essentially inaccessible to
leaching. Through using X-ray tomography, Ghorbani et al. (2013)
have also shown that leaching progresses in a reaction front migrating
into the inner particle, but stopping short of the core. The progression
of a reaction front within particles is further compromised by the
reaction of gangue or non-target minerals with the diffusing reagent,
especially acid. While this may on the one hand increase mineral poros-
ity, it contributes to reagent consumption relative to metal recovery.
2.4. Mineral grain scale
At the scale of the individual mineral grain within the ore particle
the same chemical interactions take place as in concentrate/pure miner-
al leaching, and the kinetics are governed by the local chemical condi-
tions at the mineral surface in terms of reactant concentrations, pH,
the presence of other ions and especially temperature. However, in
whole particle leaching galvanic interactions between different min-
erals closely inter-grown at the grain scale can play a significant role
in the selective dissolution of one mineral over another, or even cathod-
ic protection is possible, causing a less noble mineral to dissolve in fa-
vour of another. It is also possible that poorly soluble minerals
precipitate in the particle pores as their solubility is exceeded; this is
especially pertinent to iron hydroxides and gypsum.
3. Advantages of heap leaching — an economic analysis
The key advantage of heap leaching lies in the fact that it is the only
economic technology available to extract value metals from low-grade
ores. The economic advantage arises out of the fact that some cost-
intensive process steps necessary in the treatment of high-grade ores
can be avoided, primarily comminution through milling to make the
ore amenable to subsequent flotation (copper sulphides) or direct
leaching (copper oxides, gold ores). Milling cost increases proportional-
ly to the tonnage of ore milled, whereas potential revenue declines with
metal grade in the ore. This will result in a cut-off grade at which
treating the ore using conventional technology is no longer viable
(often cited to be 0.5% Cu for copper sulphides and 5 ppm for Au ores).
Heap leaching operates on coarsely crushed ores and hence
completely avoids costs for milling and concentration. This comes at
the cost of substantially longer extraction times, especially for sulphide
leaching, and also of lower overall recoveries of the value metal. The
economic penalty taken for the slow extraction relates to the long
time between when the mining cost is incurred and when revenue
through the sale of metal is generated. This ‘delay’ adversely affects
the cash-flow of the operation, especially in the start-up of the
operation.
This is illustrated in a recent study by Dlamini (2015) where the eco-
nomics of installing a green-field heap bioleach process with metal
refinery were compared to those of installing a concentrator and con-
centrator combined with refinery in the context of the Gamsberg sphal-
erite ore in the Northern Cape Province in South Africa. At an average
209
zinc grade of 7.4%, the ore is of intermediate grade for a zinc ore. The fol-
lowing options were compared:
Option A: Heap-bioleaching recovers 73% of zinc in 300 days
(conservatively estimated from data by Ghorbani et al., 2012),
followed by zinc extraction via the Hydrozinc™ process (Lizama
et al., 2003) to produce Special High Grade (SHG) cathode on site
for export. 96.5% zinc is recovered as cathode, with the rest being
lost in process residues.
Option B: A conventional mill-float concentrator (Davenport et al.,
2002) set-up is used to produce a sphalerite concentrate for export
and refining in Europe using a standard TC/RC (treatment charges and
refining charges) contract for this type of material. A total zinc recovery
of 86% is assumed in this process.
Option C: The ore is concentrated by milling and flotation as before,
but leached and refined onsite through an atmospheric tank leach,
based on the Outotec process (Lahtinen et al., 2008; Filippou, 2004),
followed by the same Hydrozinc™ refining route as discussed for Option
A. A leach efficiency of 98% was assumed and a zinc recovery of 96.5% to
cathode, as in Option A.
The study entailed detailed design of each process to handle 3.4 Mt.
per annum of the zinc ore to produce either SHG zinc cathode (Routes A
and C) or zinc concentrate for external toll refining. Capital and operat-
ing costs were estimated from each of the designs and a complete cash-
flow analysis was conducted for each option. Given the operation is
based in South Africa, all cost analyses were done in South African
Rand (1 ZAR = 0.096 USD in mid 2014 when the study was done). De-
tails of this analysis go beyond the scope of this paper and can be found
in Dlamini (2015).
The key findings of this study are summarised in Table 2. The zinc
production of Option A employing heap leaching is by far the lowest
due to lower recoveries associated with heap leaching (within the
time frame considered here – higher extractions would be possible
with longer leach periods) – this is offset, however, by considerably
lower capital investment and operating cost when compared to Option
C (no need to build and operate a concentrator).
Capital investment in a concentrator is significantly less than either
of the leach-and-refine options while zinc production is high (albeit in
the unrefined form), but this is offset by significantly lower earnings
on a typical refining contract as compared to the much better price for
SHG zinc cathode.
As a result, the low-efficiency heap leaching option still presents the
highest Net Present Value (NPV) of the three options compared. Internal
Rate of Return (IRR) is similar for all three options, but it should be
borne in mind that Option A (heap leaching and refining) presents a
so far untested technology for zinc, for which an investor would usually
look at IRRs N 20% to offset the higher risk. This aspect is perhaps a key
reason why heap leaching has not yet found wider application. A
Price-Value Ratio (PVR) of unity indicates a break-even investment. Al-
though all three options offer a PVR above 1, the departures are margin-
al, as is typical of primary resource technology — another reason why
the industry is traditionally seen as risk-averse.
A sensitivity study has investigated, amongst other factors, the effect
of changing the zinc price and working capital on NPV (Fig. 3). As the
zinc price increases, the difference between the NPVs for Option A
(heap leaching and refining) and Option C (concentrating, leaching
and refining) decreases. This is due to the lower annual zinc production
in Option A; hence the zinc price influences the profitability of each
process significantly. Conversely, the difference between Option B and
the other options increases. This is due to the price participation charge
found in a typical zinc concentrate refining contract – as the zinc price
increases, the treatment charge is also escalated.
Working capital refers to the capital that needs to be invested to start
up, operate the plant and maintain a stock-pile until revenue is being
received. For heap leaching this is considerable, as the long leach time
necessary to realise the full value requires a considerable ore inventory
to be under leach – the mining charges for this inventory can only be
210 J. Petersen / Hydrometallurgy 165 (2016) 206–212

Table 2
Key economic indicators of the comparative study of 3 process options for the treatment of the Gamsberg zinc ore (Dlamini, 2015).

Option A (heap leach & refining) Option B (concentrates) Option C (concentrate & refining)
Parameter

Zinc production (kt/a) 176 216 204

TCI (ZAR, Billion) 12.3 7.55 14.9
PBP (Years) 2.73 3.13 3.21
NPV (ZAR, Billion) 1.71 1.17 0.82
IRR (%) 14.6 14.8 13.6
PVR 1.16 1.17 1.06

Nomenclature: TCI — total capital invested; PBP — pay-back period; NPV — net present value; IRR — internal rate of return; PVR — price value ratio.

recovered some months down the line, as opposed to mere weeks for
the other options. For the present study it was found that an increase
in working capital by 30% would result in the NPV of Option A falling
below that of Option B (concentrator). In practice this would mean if
the time to recover 73% of zinc value from the heap increased from
300 to 400 days, the heap leach option would no longer be the most
profitable in this comparison.
As was discussed, the rate of leaching from heaps is critically deter-
mined by a number of factors, including heap permeability, and it is
generally observed that leach rates measured in laboratory columns
are rarely matched by those in operational heaps, primarily because of
poorer permeability. Hence a 30% increase in the leach time is not at
all unrealistic.
The economic study has shown that using heap leaching over con-
ventional processes can be a feasible and profitable option, but that
such a comparison is highly case specific and good data is needed to
make a meaningful decision in favour of heap leaching.
4. Heap leaching challenges
4.1. Heap permeability
As the foregoing analysis has illustrated, the slow rate of recovery
from heaps is a major drawback of this technology in that it requires
substantial inventories of ore under leach. A typical generic copper
heap leach curve versus time is shown in Fig. 4 — this suggest that
60–70% extraction can be achieved quite rapidly (accounting for an ad-
aptation delay in bioleaching), but beyond that the extraction curve be-
gins to slow considerably. The multitude of processes taking place in a
heap contribute to this slowing, but diffusion through stagnant zones
in the ore bed and within particle pores are perhaps the most critical.
The latter can be countered by alternative crushing technology (e.g.
HPGR which creates more pores) and crushing to finer sizes, but this
is likely to adversely affect the former with more fines, corresponding
to overall lower heap permeability. Further, the length of time over
which an ore is kept under leach appears to decrease heap permeability
due to decrepitation of ore particles in the aggressive leach environment
and precipitation of leached gangue minerals such as magnesium, calci-
um and aluminium sulphates as well as jarosites, clogging pore spaces
(Ahonen and Tuovinen, 1995).
In some cases the reclamation and re-stacking of ore during heap
leaching is practised to allow exposure and leaching of unleached parti-
cles previously isolated from solution flow. On-off rinse patterns aim to
achieve a similar effect. Building shallower heaps (as little as one metre
have been suggested; Paul and Johnson, 1975) in general also seems to
support more rapid leaching, but at constant mine production this
would require a substantially larger footprint for the heap, the prepara-
tion of which might not be economical. Bioleaching of sulphide minerals
enables rapid leaching at optimal temperatures through the exothermic
oxidation reaction, but achieving such temperatures in heaps stacked in
cold climates can take a considerable amount of time during which
leach acid may preferentially react with gangue, resulting in inefficient
operation and premature heap clogging. Pre-heating a cold ore could
significantly reduce this delay at relatively small cost, but this is not in-
dustrial practice at this stage.

Fig. 3. a: Effect of variation of Zinc price on the NPV of the various process options consid-
ered for the treatment of the Gamsberg zinc ore. b: Effect of variation of working capital
(WC) on the NPV of the various process options considered for the treatment of the
Gamsberg zinc ore. Fig. 4. A typical Cu sulphide heap extraction curve (based on data by Garcia et al., 1999).
 J. Petersen / Hydrometallurgy 165 (2016) 206–212
4.2. Limitations by commodity
A further key drawback of heap leaching relates to the relatively low
concentrations of value metal in the PLS, requiring relatively more elab-
orate technology or larger scale of operation to recover it as compared to
concentrate leaching processes. The absence of effective technologies
to recover certain metals selectively from low-grade solution has
prevented heap leach technology from being considered for their
recovery (John, 2011) – these include zinc and nickel. Although the
Hydrozinc™ process in the case study presented above revolves around
an SX process for zinc, it needs to be operated at a relatively high pH, re-
quiring neutralisation of the acidic PLS from the heap, and iron control
remains problematic. The need for lime or limestone as a neutralisation
agent significantly influences the operating costs of the process. Similar
problems exist in the extraction of nickel from mixed leach liquors.
Selective ion exchange resins remain an active field of investigation,
and this is the technology of choice for uranium heap leaching. Their
great advantage is the ability to recover metals even at extremely low
solution concentrations. Speciality resins are expensive, however, and
their application remains mostly niche.
4.3. Environmental concerns
A final drawback of heap leach technology lies in a lack of environ-
mental control over the process. The flows of potentially toxic chemical
solutions (containing acid or cyanide and dissolved metals) through the
large scale operation present a certain risk for leakage into the environ-
ment — through cracks in the liners underneath heaps and through
open channels for solution collection and ponds for storage. Water
losses through evaporation and from wind-blown irrigation sprays
can be considerable. All these aspects require careful management of
heap operation, but the risk of a leak in the heap liner remaining unde-
tected is considerable and hence double-liner systems are becoming
more commonplace.
A further concern is directed at the fate of spent heaps. Two principal
approaches exist — removal of the spent ore from the leach pad and dis-
posal in a waste pile, or stacking of fresh material on top of the spent
layer as a new lift. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages.
A spent heap is rarely completely exhausted, given the generally poor
extraction discussed previously. Hence leaching will continue at very
slow rates from the spent material, regardless of where it is deposited.
This could pose problems in an un-lined or unmonitored waste pile, es-
pecially in areas of high rainfall. Multiple-lift heaps, on the other hand,
intend to harness this slow leaching by contacting leach liquor from
the upper, fresh pile with the spent lower pile allowing additional
value to be released. Poor permeability of an old heap can interfere,
however, with efficient leaching from the fresh one, and thus effectively
cancel the gains made by not having to move the spent heap.
A criticism is often levelled at heaps in that they require large solu-
tion inventories which are permanently held up in the bed, even after
the heap is spent. While this is correct, compared to conventional pro-
cessing, heaps are actually a lesser sink to water: Tailings dams of finely
ground material usually retain in the order of 30% moisture, whereas in
heaps it is only around 10% due to the larger, unsaturated pore spaces
present. In direct comparison therefore, heap processing appears less
water intensive than conventional processing, but the author is not
aware of such a study having been conducted systematically.
5. Future directions of heap leaching
Heap leaching technology is well established for leaching from low-
grade copper oxide and sulphide ores as well as for gold leaching. A few
uranium plants are in operation, but these are relatively uncommon. Al-
though the technology has been explored for zinc at the demonstration
scale (on which the economic study above is based), there are no
existing operations that employ this process. Heap leaching is also
211
employed in some operations for the dissolution of nitrates from caliche
minerals (Gálvez et al., 2012).
However there have been a significant number of process innova-
tions looking at heap leaching using novel reagents, such as the
ammonia/thiosulphate system for gold (Grosse et al., 2003), ammonia
for copper oxides (AmmLeach; Welham, 2007), chloride for Cu-
sulphides (Aroca et al., 2012) and targeted thermophile bio-leaching for
primary copper sulphides (Dew et al., 2011). Different commodities
considered are zinc (as discussed above), Ni from low-grade laterites
(Agatzini-Leonardou et al., 2009; Readett and Fox, 2010), bio-leaching
of poly-metallic shales (Saari and Riekkola-Vanhanen, 2011), rare earths
from their relevant ores, as well as copper, zinc, tin, lead etc. from elec-
tronic scrap (by bioleaching and chemical leaching; Ilyas et al., 2013).
Re-leaching of tailings and residue materials, either to liberate addi-
tional value left behind due to incomplete extraction (especially in the
context of historic gold tailings) or to extract other values not originally
targeted in the primary extraction process (for example, uranium in
gold tailings, rare earth elements in titanium sand residues, zinc in
steel making furnace dusts, copper in smelter slags), are other applica-
tions where heap leaching could be employed for the economic recov-
ery of these values. The Geocoat™ technology (Harvey and Bath,
2003), which envisages coating concentrates onto coarse support rock,
provides an inexpensive route to make fine material ‘heap-leachable’
in this context.
However, for any of these new directions to be successful, some of
the key drawbacks of heap leaching discussed above need to be ad-
dressed through further research and careful engineering planning. In
this sense heap and ore permeability need to be managed through ore
crush size, heap stacking and solution application management,
selective extraction of target metals from low-tenor solution, and envi-
ronmentally safe operation and disposal of spent ore. Process improve-
ments need to be evaluated on an economic – and ideally also
environmental – basis against competing technologies. Implementation
of any heap leach process needs to follow the route from lab-scale eval-
uation, pilot and demonstration scale trials, before embarking on a fully
commercial operation, as would be good engineering practice.
6. Conclusions
This brief overview has illustrated that heap leach technology can be
competitive against ‘conventional’ extractive metallurgy, especially in
the context of low-grade ores. Considerable potential exists for its use
for secondary resource materials. However, heap leaching needs to be
appreciated as a relatively complex reactor technology and operated
with this understanding to harness maximum value. The large physical
scale of a heap leach operation makes it difficult to develop the technol-
ogy exclusively in a laboratory, and a close collaboration between a min-
ing operation and an R&D organisation is required at a relatively early
stage of development. Given the relative risk averseness of the mining
industry, this aspect has perhaps prevented a broader uptake of the
technology so far, although interest remains considerable.
Acknowledgements
This paper represents the written version of a keynote address deliv-
ered to IC-LGO 2015 in Jamshedpur, India. Travel to this conference was
generously sponsored by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of
South Africa through their KIC Grant (KIC14081290409).
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