Solute transportation mechanism of heap leaching and its influencing factors

The solute transport process and the transport mechanism were studied due to its complexity and variability.The uniform flow model for solute transport was presented based on the assumption of ideal flow in heap.The mobile-immobile model was set up by considering the interaction and influence between mobile solution and immobile solution zones.Column experiment on the solute transportation was conducted by adopting marker breakthrough curve method.The effect of ore diameter and irrigate rate on solute transportation was investigated.The results show that the initial solute concentration of big ore heap with large pore diameter and ratio increase rapidly,because large quantity of solution flows out with the conductive effect of large pore.The immobile solution ratio in the small ore heap is large because of the large surface area.The solute concentration increases slowly due to the slow molecule diffusion transport process.The immobile solution within the heap is the key factor influencing the solute transportation.The solute transport process could be optimized by controlling the ore size distribution and irrigation rate.