Known binding agents such as water glass are not stable in the low pH environment typically used in heap leach operations. Do you know of any effective agglomeration methods for fines generated during crushing of copper-containing ore prior to heap leaching of the agglomerated material?
Have an insight or suggestion?
Login or register to post a comment.
-
Re: Agglomeration methods for copper-containing ore
6 November 2006 at 1:29pmI can only offer one idea. I'm not familiar with the heap leach process, but do know that copper is a not very reactive with most chemicals. You may want to try PEG 10,000 (Polyethylene glycol 10,000 molecular weight) or one of the polysulfones that are used in industrial detergents. I'm not sure what cost you can tolerate or how low the pH may be, but these agglomerating agents are used in modestly low pH environments (about 4). We used to use PEG for detergents to prevent dusting.
Login or register to post a comment.
