Assessing metal recovery from low-grade copper ores containing fluoride

Low-grade ores are becoming increasingly important to metal production due to increasing metal prices and depletion of high-grade, low-impurity sources. Bioleaching can be an option to recover the metallic content present in these tailings. In this work, the bioleaching potential of a low-grade copper ore, containing chalcocite, bornite and chalcopyrite, was demonstrated with a Sulfobacillus thermosulfidooxidans strain, at 50 °C. Batch experiments were performed in shake flasks as well as a bioreactor (BioFlo 110), and the effects of pH, metal concentration and air flow rate on copper extraction were determined. The presence of fluoride in the gangue minerals resulted in up to 270 mg/L total fluoride in solution, which affected bioleaching. Fluoride toxicity was overcome with aluminium additions and resulted in high copper extraction (up to 100%) at pH 1.9. Speciation calculations were performed with on the aluminium-fluoride systems and indicated AlF2+ as the main complex in the system, whereas HF concentration was reduced to values below 10−4 mol/L, which seems to be the threshold for bacterial growth inhibition.