MULTI-PHYSICS SIMULATION IN THE 21st CENTURY.

Email: info@physica.co.uk

[ AERO-ACOUSTICS ]   [ CHEMICALLY REACTING FLOW ]
[ DYNAMIC FLUID-STRUCTURE INTERACTION ]
[ HIGH SPEED IMPACT ]   [ MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS ]
[ VARIABLY SATURATED FLOW ]   

Chemically reacting flow: Modelling stockpile leaching of copper ore

Stockpile leaching of primary ores, especially copper, is of increasing importance in the mining industry. Mineral extraction is achieved by contacting stockpiles of mined and crushed ore with a chemical reactant, or raffinate, which dissolves the copper. The copper can be extracted after the recovery of the raffinate through electrowinning. Better understanding of the process through modelling is of great importance in improving the management of the process, not least because the timescale of the physical process and of the experiments currently used for optimization is in months or even years.

Modelling the leaching process presents many challenges. It is multiphase, involving the interaction of a solid phase (ore), liquid phase (raffinate) and gas phase (air). It also involves multiple chemical reactions both in the liquid and solid phases, multiple chemical species that all need to be monitored, heat transfer and bacteria that catalyse some important reactions. The ore itself can contain numerous different mineral types and consists of particles that can vary in scale from microns up to a meter.

6 years of development have gone into a heap leach model based on PHYSICA that meets these challenges, and this model is currently being used commercially to explore best practice for leaching.