BHP and SiTration, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) spin-out, are planning to conduct two pilot programmes of copper recovery technology at BHP’s site in the Globe-Miami district of Arizona, US.
The companies aim to demonstrate a method for producing copper domestically by extracting it from legacy mining water at the historic Copper Cities site.
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The initial phase of the pilot will focus on a small-scale trial, running over one month.
Later this year, the project is expected to expand, with a larger deployment planned to produce up to two tonnes (t) of commercial-scale copper cathodes for two months.
Copper Cities was an active mine that produced nearly 400,000t of copper between the 1950s and early 1980s.
BHP legacy assets general manager Kevin Ramsay said: “The Copper Cities pilot provides an opportunity to evaluate an innovative approach to recover copper from mining-impacted water while generating valuable technical and operational insights.
“We are excited to work with SiTration to test this technology under real operating conditions and better understand its potential to recover value from legacy mining water sources.”
BHP and SiTration believe that the new approach could enable further recovery of valuable metals from existing sites and support efforts to enhance domestic copper supply in the US.
Both the companies have signed an agreement forming the basis for collaboration on the pilot programme and to evaluate future opportunities if the pilots show positive results.
SiTration CEO and co-founder Brendan Smith said: “The American Southwest houses legacy mining water containing billions of dollars’ worth of copper.
“With global copper demand projected to grow by around 70% by 2050 to support the rapid buildout of energy infrastructure and data centres, tapping into these resources is an excellent pathway to bolster domestic supply chains while producing copper at the bottom of the global cost curve.”
SiTration has already conducted bench-scale tests on feedstock from Copper Cities, which reportedly produced LME Grade A copper.
These tests used no chemicals, did not generate new waste products and yielded energy consumption below 3–4kW-hours per kilogram for copper recovery from diluted legacy mining water.
