Patent ID: 8323377

Claim:
A process for recovering a target metal from an oxidised metalliferous material comprising the steps of: in an acid generation stage, adding sulfuric acid to a solution comprising a metal halide to generate an acidic aqueous halide solution; in a first leaching stage, that is separate to the acid generation stage, leaching the oxidised metalliferous material with the acidic aqueous halide solution to leach the target metal into solution; separating the solution from the first leaching stage from first leached solids and passing the solution to a target metal recovery stage in which the target metal is recovered from the solution whilst the metal halide is retained in solution; returning the solution with the metal halide therein from the target metal recovery stage to the acid generation stage; passing the first leached solids from the first leaching stage to a second leaching stage in which the solids are mixed with the acidic aqueous halide solution; and separating the second leached solids from the solution of the second leaching stage, passing a portion of this solution to the first leaching stage and discarding the second leached solids as residue; and passing the remaining portion of the solution of the second leaching stage to the acid generation stage whereby, after the sulfuric acid is added to this solution, the acidic aqueous halide solution is then generated for feeding to the second leaching stage.