Mineral leaching
OwnerAnderson B. Flyinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Uranium ore is crushed and formed into a slurry. The slurry is pumped into a leaching tank and classified by a sparge tube projecting water at teeter velocity at the bottom of the ore bed. Thereafter, a second ore bed is pumped by the slurry into the tank and the second bed classified. This is repeated until there are four or five ore beds in the tank. Thereafter, the ore is leached by passing liquid up from the bottom of the tank at velocities less than teeter velocities so that the bed remains classified. After leaching, the ore is formed into a slurry and the slurry pumped from the tanks to disposal.
Claims25
The method of extracting leachable minerals from ore comprising:
- (a) crushing the ore, then
- (b) forming a fresh slurry with the crushed ore and a liquid, then
- (c) pumping the crushed ore into an ore tank having liquid, and
- (d) forming a bed of crushed ore below the liquid, then
- (e) classifying the ore bed into strata, with a stratum of course ore below of at least one stratum of fine ore, then
- (f) leaching the classified ore bed in a quiescent condition by circulating liquid
- (i) from the bottom of the tank,
- (ii) up through the ore bed,
- (iii) into a stratum above the ore bed,
- (iv) through a recovery system, and
- (v) back to the bottom of the tank.
The method of extracting leachable minerals from ore comprising:
- (a) crushing the ore, then
- (b) forming an ore bed in a large open earthen tank with sufficient liquid, thus
- (c) forming a liquid stratum in the tank over the ore bed,
- (d) classifying the ore bed into strata with a stratum of coarse ore below at least one stratum of the fine ore, thereafter
- (e) leaching the classified ore bed in a quiescent condition by circulating liquid
- (i) from the bottom of the tank,
- (ii) up through the ore bed,
- (iii) into a stratum above the ore bed,
- (iv) through a recovery system, and
- (v) back to the bottom of the tank.
The method of extracting leachable minerals from ore comprising:
- (a) crushing the ore, then
- (b) forming a fresh slurry with the crushed ore and a liquid,
- (c) floating a barge on liquid in a large earthen ore tank,
- (d) pumping the fresh slurry of crushed ore into the large earthern ore tank through said barge, then
- (e) forming a bed of crushed ore below the liquid, thereafter
- (f) leaching the ore bed by circulating liquid
- (i) from the bottom of the tank,
- (ii) up through the ore bed,
- (iii) into a stratum above the ore bed,
- (iv) through a recovery system, and
- (v) back to the bottom of the tank, thereafter
- (g) forming a barren from the leached ore bed, and finally
- (h) pumping the barren slurry through the barge floating on the liquid in the large earthen ore tank to disposal.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.