Novel Strategies to Minimise Liquid Flow Channelling in Packed Bed Systems Pertaining to Industrial Heap Leaching

Heap leaching is a well-known hydrometallurgical technique, where the low-grade ores with a relatively coarse particle size are processed for valuable metal extraction. Heap leaching is economically favoured over the other established metal extraction techniques, as the associated capital costs are significantly lower. Although it delivers on the economic aspects, the metal extraction efficiencies are not entirely attractive thus, presents a wide scope for improvement. This drawback is primarily ascribed to the anomalous liquid distribution within the heap. Therefore, this work attempts to explore strategies to improve the liquid distribution within heaps, which eventually leads to an enhanced metal extraction.