| abstract |
Mineral values, particularly uranium, are recovered from ground mineral-containing ore by contacting the ground ore with an oxidizing gas and leaching with an acidic or alkaline leach solution. The oxidizing gas treatment significantly increases minerals recovery and/or significantly reduces the severity of the conditions required, particularly the temperature and the concentration of leach chemicals. Further improvements are attained by separating a total ore into a coarse fraction and a fines fraction and separately treating at least a part of these two fractions. The sequence of operations, i.e., treating with oxidizing gas and leaching, the manner of leaching and the conditions of leaching are varied to obtain significantly improved results, based on the discoveries that a coarse fraction is substantially easier to leach than the total ore or the fines fraction and treatment with an oxidizing gas significantly improves the ease of leaching, particularly of the fines fraction. |