Miguel Angel Munoz

Abstract:

Since 2009, Cobre las Cruces (CLC) is operating successfully an integrated mine and hydrometallurgical plant near Seville, Spain. The CLC hydro plant deals with chalcocite ores through direct atmospheric leaching process followed by solvent extraction and electrowinning. CLC is producing about 72,000 t/y Cu cathode, Grade A, 99.999% Cu. Throughout these years, continuous improvement has been one of the main bases of CLC strategy, trying to increase the efficiency of the production process. The last steps have been to improve the copper losses. A set of press filters were installed to minimize copper losses increasing washing efficiency and produce a drier and cleaner residue. This issue allowed recovering around 1,500 additional ton of copper per year. During commissioning and startup of the new filter availability issues were detected due to gypsum scaling. To minimize this effect two pulp coolers were installed resulting an increase of 10% in availability. The new slurry cooling towers provides a more effective process configuration to CLC hydro plant, adding two additional advantages: (i) evaporated water has been substantially increased, improving the plant water balance; (ii) gypsum scaling has been reduced improving SX performance (less TSS in SX feed).