Patent ID: 8741238

Claim:
A process for producing an enriched copper concentrate and precious metals from a copper-and-nickel-containing ore having precious metal values, the process comprising: comminuting the ore to provide a ground ore comprising copper minerals and nickel minerals; subjecting the ground ore to a floatation process, to separate the ground ore into a first concentrate comprising a concentration of copper-enriched-and-nickel-containing solids and a second concentrate comprising a concentration of nickel-enriched-and-copper-containing solids, wherein the concentration of the copper minerals is higher in the first concentrate than in the ore and the concentration of the nickel minerals is higher in the second concentrate than the ore; subjecting the second concentrate to a hydrometallurgical extraction, to extract a copper-containing leachate from the second concentrate; wherein the hydrometallurgical extraction comprises pressure oxidation in the presence of a halide salt to dissolve copper and nickel as soluble metal sulphate salts and precious metals as chloro-complexed species; recovering the precious metals from the copper-containing leachate; and, exposing the first concentrate to the copper-containing leachate under metathetic leaching conditions that are effective to increase the concentration of copper, and decrease the concentration of nickel, in the copper-enriched-and-nickel-containing solids, to provide the enriched copper concentrate.