Copper Leaching and Its Advantages

Copper has become part and parcel of our lives due to its presence everywhere. Nowadays, it’s really hard to visualize this world without copper and its items. Our power systems, heating, systems communications, water supply, and transportations all rely on copper or its alloys. Copper makes our homes, offices, and businesses proficient, calm and attractive. Cooper is durable and recyclable so that it can last for years and even centuries. Cooper is naturally present in earth and typically extracted through mining and leaching. You may be familiar with copper mining but not with leaching. Different mining companies like Solaris Resources use different techniques due to various reasons like the presence of copper ore on the earth, available technology, ease, less wastage, etc. Nowadays, many companies are trying to do experiments with leaching due to its potential benefits.

What Is Copper Leaching?

Leaching is an alternative to copper mining. This process is absolutely different from copper mining. 

Leaching is not a new process; it is a natural and universal process in which water tends to leach the material component which comes into its contact. Sulphuric acid is used to treat the copper ore. Sulphuric acid slowly trickles through the ore—this process takes time, even months. Copper dilutes into copper sulphate. Copper sulphate is a weak solution and ready for copper extraction. Solvent extraction or electrowinning technique is used to recover the copper. This process is also known as the SX-EW technique. Leaching is a bit time consuming as compared to mining. Take a look at Solaris Resources Stock  to learn more.

Advantages Of Leaching

This process is getting popular due to its following advantages. First, there are different types of leaching, and each type almost shares similar advantages.

• Less waste produced and easy to carry out. It provides less damage to the environment as compared to other methods.
• Traditional mining requires heavy machinery and more energy, while this process requires less energy.
• No emission of harmful gasses and other gaseous pollutants, so it is an environmentally friendly process.
• It requires low capital investment, so it is economical.
• It can be started on a smaller scale easily. This method is successful even for the little ore copper, such as 0.1 percent. Take some mining insights from Dale Andres.

Final Thoughts

Leaching is not a new copper extraction method, but nowadays, this process has been modernized due to technological advancements. Different companies are adopting this process due to its potential benefits. This method is successful even for the little ore copper; thus, leaching extraction is growing. In the coming years, this SX-EW will represent 25% of total refined copper production. Another big but secondary source of copper production is recycling. Yes, recycling is the second biggest source to get the copper. Around half of the world’s copper demand is currently met with recycled material. It is an important contribution to the economy and environment. Therefore, there is an extreme need to work more on copper recycling and its awareness among the masses.