Speaker
Description
Unconsolidated materials and soils have a general capability to absorb and retain fluids because of their porosity. Measuring this water content can be important for certain applications such as heap leaching.
Heap leaching is mineral processing technology wherein certain metals (e.g. Cu, Au, Ag..) are extracted from a stack of crushed mineral ore via chemical reactions initiated by a lixiviant or reagent fluid. This fluid is simply distributed at the top surface of the pile and let percolate through the stack. Industrial leaching operations at a mine site can achieve remarkable scales. Some leaching heaps are among the biggest structures ever built, reaching base areas of several km2 and elevations up to 100m.
In heap leaching, the determination of fluid content is a key parameter both for the productivity and the stability of the heap. Muon radiography offers a natural way to perform such a measurement directly in-situ and over large areas. In this talk, we will present results from the first in-situ fluid content determination performed by Muon Vision at an active leaching heap in Chile.
