At a recent mining event, IM Editorial Director Paul Moore had the opportunity to sit down with Dr Eva Lain, the electrochemistry expert who developed the E-LIX process back in 2014 – a rare example of an entrepreneur in mineral processing developing a novel process route on their own and managing to bring it to the market. She is also the Founder and CEO of Lain Tech, her company that continues to advance the commercialisation of E-LIX.

Lain told IM: “I started the development in the lab while I was at Cambridge University doing a PhD. The results were really good so I filed a patent in 2015 and then contacted three mining companies in Spain about a potential pilot to enable scale up of the technology. Two of them said no, one because it was too small scale for them at that stage and the other because they were taking a different route, but Atalaya Mining – then known as EMED Mining – showed interest.”

Dr Eva Lain, Founder and CEO of Lain Tech

From 2015 to 2019, lab scale work continued then Lain built her own small scale pilot plant with her own funding – but it worked well enough for the Atalaya board to commit to supporting and funding it. This allowed the building of a second, this time semi-industrial scale demo plant to prove the process at scale as part of a feasibility study. This was positive, so Atalaya then approved the construction of the first full industrial scale plant in 2021 – the Phase 1 plant – which was completed in late 2023, when final commissioning started. Since then, Lain Tech and Atalaya have been working to get the plant to its nameplate capacity. It has the potential to significantly push out the mine life due to the greater recovery while still moving the same amount of ore at the same cost; but also some of the mineralisation is not economic to process without using E-LIX.

The plant has been producing copper and zinc metal since 2024, and Atalaya retains a form of exclusivity over the use of the E-LIX process in the IPB in both Spain and Portugal – though with their permission it could be licensed to other operators. But Lain Tech is free to market its use in the rest of the world. However, Lain chose to derisk and to optimise the process with the first main plant at Riotinto. Another upside is that the plant allows the use of non-commercial concentrates as a feed with much lower grades than required by smelters – so this also allows for a more flexible flotation process upstream. Currently it has the capacity to treat about 20% of Riotinto’s concentrate production. Since it was built, additional investment has also been put in place to achieve further expansion and modernisation, including funding from the European Regional Development Fund.

So why E-LIX, what is the market upside plus how does it work in detail? Lain: “E-LIX is a novel electrochemical hydrometallurgical leaching technology that is unique in the world. It leaches primary sulphides which represent about 80% of the world’s known reserves of major base metals like copper and zinc.” Primary sulphides are found below oxidised caps which are mined first and easier to process – primary sulphides are processed with flotation to produce concentrate for shipping to smelters rather than producing metal on site. In the Iberian Pyrite Belt, Atalaya’s Riotinto for example produces a 22-23% copper concentrate.

She adds: “Our process represents an alternative to smelters – and it is hydrometallurgy based – while many have tried to develop similar processes with the same objectives, this is the first time that such a process has been available that is economically competitive; and we are the first to have reached industrialisation stage.”

Many have tried and failed – the Brisa Process, Biocop Process, Galvanox Process, Dynatec Process – the list goes on. These have all ended up being restricted to lab scale or demo plants and they have been too slow to be commercially viable. Refractory primary sulphides like chalcopyrite can be corroded at very high rates when subjected to transpassive potentials, but still electrochemical leaching has not made the leap to industry. This is because of the passivation layer – at transpassive potentials, a passivation layer containing sulphur and and sulphur-based compounds rapidly forms, coating the mineral and adsorbing to the electrode, quickly diminishing the leaching process efficiency. E-LIX solves the passivation layer problem by reducing what is a four step process in other methods – leaching, solvent exchange extraction, solvent exchange stripping and electrowinning – to a one step process where everything is simultaneously carried out in a reactor.

E-LIX utilises singular catalysts and physicochemical conditions to dissolve the valuable metals contained within sulphide concentrates

E-LIX utilises singular catalysts and physicochemical conditions to dissolve the valuable metals contained within sulphide concentrates. The reactor-based system design allows for the dissolution of chalcopyrite (or sphalerite in the case of zinc) while avoiding the passivation of particles. After copper or other metals are brought into solution, they can be recovered by conventional precipitation or solvent extraction followed by electrowinning (SX-EW), thereby producing finished metal on site.

While it has potential application worldwide, it has particular applicability in the Iberian Pyrite Belt as it is challenging for operations to meet smelter specifications. This is firstly due to penalty elements such as arsenic, antimony, mercury and bismuth which incur additional charges or above a certain cap are not accepted. E-LIX only leaches the element or elements of interest leaving unwanted elements untouched. The other IPB issue is that with polymetallic orebodies you have complex mineralogies with mixed sulphides – this makes flotation stages more challenging to meet the smelter concentrate requirements as you need to use selective flotation, such as separate lines for copper and zinc and lead. This means more CAPEX but also to meet the requirements, it is at the expensive of recovery as you are losing a lot of metal during the various cleaner stages. Combining all ore flotation with E-LIX can achieve up to 40% greater recovery compared to selective flotation followed by smelting. So the potential upside is huge. And the use of E-LIX is not restricted to copper and zinc – it could also be used for a range of other metals, including gold.

Today, E-LIX remains at an advanced but critical stage. Atalaya most recently stated in its Q4 2025 results: “In Q4 2025, the E-LIX Phase I plant operated for intermittent periods and produced zinc precipitates from copper-zinc concentrates, although at a variable and reduced capacity due to the focus on optimising the process. All zinc precipitates produced have been sold. An independent engineering firm has completed the review of the operating parameters and confirmed the potential added value of the process when treating complex polymetallic concentrates like those prevailing in the Iberian Pyrite Belt.”

It added: “Based on the conclusions of the engineering report, Atalaya’s goal during 2026 is to profitably extract zinc and precious metals from bulk copper-zinc concentrates produced at Proyecto Riotinto. Atalaya continues working with Lain Tech on the long term operating strategy, including existing funding requirements, to achieve a profitable application of E-LIX at its deposits in the Iberian Pyrite Belt.”

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