Critical Minerals Development Lab

BioHeap Ltd was formed over 20 years ago, and since 2022 has been a wholly owned subsidiary of IGO Ltd. BioHeap focuses on the microbial leaching of sulphide minerals, which involves the continuous adaptation of the microbial cultures to extreme leaching conditions typically associated with mining operations, whether that is high salinity or dissolved metal concentrations. Microbial cultures curated by BioHeap have economically operated in hypersaline water, effectively recovered liberated chalcopyrite and survived high temperature incursions. This technology is protected by an extensive international patent and trademark suite. The primary application of this technology is for the extraction or liberation of valuable metals and minerals for downstream recovery. It can be applied as a standalone operation or utilised alongside traditional processing methods. This has been demonstrated at scale in both heap leaching and stirred tank reactors. The most recent full-scale application of this technology was a stirred tank reactor (STR) leaching circuit at the processing plant at IGO’s Forrestania Operation. This was an additional unit operation of the flotation plant which focused on the separation of nickel from arsenic (mineralogically bound). The BioHeap microbes facilitated the oxidation of nickel and arsenic minerals to produce a high nickel grade pregnant liquor solution (>20 g/L) which was low in arsenic. This was subsequently used to produce a high-grade nickel concentrate (>45% nickel). BioHeap has conducted early-stage amenability testing for more than 50 clients and has a highly experienced team of chemical engineers, metallurgists, microbiologists and technicians. The team has delivered projects from laboratory scale through to full scale onsite operations. For more information, email bioheap@igo.com.au