Mohave County miner., 1912-03-30
The New Copper
 Process At Butte


 Process Company, built at the Washoe smelter of the Anaconda Copper Min ing Company by A. c. Burrage and associates. for the application of the Bradley process in the extraction of copper, gold and silver from the shines of the Washoe concentrator, is nearly ready for operation, though there have been some unexpected delays.
 There are over a million tons of these shines piled up near the Washoe shelter, and the pile is constantly ad- ded to although the Anaconda is itself treating some of the stuff by briquetting it as it comes from the concentrator and treating it in the blast furnaces. However, the furnaces cannot keep up with the output of the concentrator The shines carry about IA per cent of copper and about a dollar in gold and silver per ton of shines, By the Bradley process it is expected to recover practically all of the copper in the shines.
 The Copper Extraction Process Con- pany has contract with the Anaconda Company by which It pays a stated sum per ton of shines used. Another system of recovering the metals from the shines, known as the Peck centri fugal process, is also being tested at the Washoe.
 The Bradley plant has been built at cost of over 250, ,0O0$, and has a capac, ity for treating over 25O tons of ma terial per "A hours, with part of it capable of treating 800 tons per day.
 The process which is the invention of Charles s. Bradley, was developed in an experimental plant in Hayonne, N. J. The invention claims an econom lcal method of dissolving the metals in copper ores by the use of chloride compound as a carrier and transform CT by which means waste products are made insoluble and the metals taken in solution are removed from the gan que and other constituents of the ore. from which solution they are after ward recovered.
 In the actual operation of the pro. cess the ore containing a sulphide is subjected to carefully conducted roasting operation in what is known as an amphidizer, in which operation the copper in the ore is roasted to a sul lphate and most of the iron is con- verted into ferric oxide. This step in- wolves heating the finely crushed ore in the amphidizer (which is rotating moasting furnace) to a temperature of 450 to $50 degrees C., air being blown Tn the amphidizer to accelerate oxida tion. The roasted ore is thcn brought into association with an excess, of cal cum chloride solution in a reaction drum which is maintained at a tem perature of about 100 degrees c Cupric chloride is produced by the re- action between copper sulphate and calcium chloride. while any ferric sul phate in the ore coming from the am phidizer reacts with calcium -chlol idle to produce ferric chloride, which is soluble. The calcium sulphate result, ing from both these reactions is of course lnsoluble and is separated by Alteration in the succeeding step. The production of ferric chloride at the point is advantageous in that it dis solves any copper oxide, copper sul- phide or metallic copper which was unaffected in the amphidizer, pro. ducing copper chloride, and this ferric chloride also maintains the copper chloride in the cupric state.
 The patent specification states "ary gold or silver present in the solution may be carried down during precipita, tion of the iron, aluminium and copper and subsequently, removed or separat. ed therefrom, in any preferred man. ner known to those skilled in this art"
 Gold and silver present in the ore is brought into solution by making all the copper into cupric chloride and then adding a small amount of chlor- inc, chlorus or chloric compounds The chlorides of silver and gold being soluble in calcium solutions, may after. wards be precipitated with the cop per and subsequently, separated After leaving the reaction drum the mass of gangue, solutions and precipi.