ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,492,449, issued on Dec. 9, was assigned to BHP CHILE INC. (Santiago, Chile).
"Oxidative bioleaching of base metals" was invented by Clement Chilowa Chibwana (Concepcion, Chile) and Cristian E. Mundaca (Santiago, Chile).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An oxidative bioleaching process for leaching a base metal from an ore that includes an ore agglomeration step, an ore stacking step wherein agglomerated ore is stacked to form a heap, a curing step, a rinse step, an inoculation step and a leach step, and wherein, during the ore agglomeration step, the ore is contacted with an acid solution containing nitrate or nitrite thereby to accelerate th...