A finalist in copper-focused Australian miner OZ Minerals’ latest crowd challenge says halide leaching technology might be finally ready to “turn the whole copper minerals processing industry on its head” after the company’s demonstration of successful copper electrowinning “closed the loop” on previous work by Intec.
DCS Technical principal Dave Sammut, an industrial chemist who originally started working at Intec more than 25 years ago, says his firm has “put in place the last piece of the puzzle” that eluded the developers of the Intec process for converting copper concentrate into high-grade metal. That company – these days known as Scidev – listed on the Australian Securities Exchange 20 years ago and reportedly spent more than A$50 million on its portfolio of patented hydrometallurgical technologies. BHP, Sumitomo and Nippon Steel were among the early backers of Intec.
