Tecnologías avanzadas en lixiviación

Sensoil VMS Technology

Smart Sensing for Heap Leaching

Presentado por Nicolas Soussana Agosto 2015 MINELIXI

IV Encuentro Internacional en Operación y Mantención de Plantas de Lixiviación

 Leaching process
Flow and transport in unsaturated medium

Depends  on:  
•  Ore  size  
•  Ore  type  
•  Cohesion  factor              Low  recovery                    
•  Permeability  
•  Percola<on    
•  Applica<on  rate  
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 Leaching process
What we don’t know

l  The real copper content in the heap

l  The repartition of the copper through the heap
l  Preferential flows through the heap
l  Flooding through the heap
l  Chemical profile trough the heap
l  Is the application rate adequate everywhere?
l  Heap stability

Low copper concentration in the PLS doesn’t mean the all

copper has been leached!
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Sensoil Vadose Zone Monitoring System
The VMS with its innovative design, enhances monitoring of the heap leach pad,
and provides on line solution parameters measurement and solution sampling.
It enables hydraulic and chemical profiles to be drawn through the heap, indicating
the extent of percolation, leaching and extraction efficiency. Its analytical sample
collection feature allows monitoring of the leach profile in real-time, in-situ,
instead of waiting until the heap is dismantled.

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 Sensoil Monitoring System

Designed to provide:
Continuous real-time measurements of the hydraulic and
chemical properties of the percolating water in deep
unsaturated zone

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Sensoil VMS : How does it work?
The core of the Sensoil
technology is a series of
special probes with multiple
discrete sensors and sampling
devices encased in hard-
wearing flexible pipes which
are distributed diagonally
through the zone of interest.

The monitoring units are

composed of Flexible Time-
Domain Reflectometry (FTDR)
probes which are designed to
provide continuous
measurements of the sediment
water content and Vadose Zone
Sampling Ports (VSP) which are Demonstration of a monitoring unit (middle)
hosting FTDR and VSP(left) assembled on a
designed to enable sampling of
flexible sleeve (right)  
the heap pore water.

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 Sensoil Monitoring System
l  FTDR provides online
information of:
•  Permittivity (water content)
•  Temperature
l  VSP provides
continuous information
of :
•  Metals concentration
•  pH
•  Potential Red Ox
•  Pore Pressure

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 Sensoil VMS : Installation

Drilling a slanted borehole Sleeve preparation Installation

Real time monitoring Setting the control Panel

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 Sensoil VMS : Control Panel

Data Logging

Pressure Control

Samples Collection

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 Sensoil VMS : Advantages

Heap Leach & R.O.M Leach & Tailings
"   Simple sensor installation procedure which allows sensors to be retrofitted to
existing heaps or installed during construction of new lifts.
"   Sample collection and on-line measurement units are simply installed in every
new lift.
"   Provides hydraulic and chemical profiles of the Pregnant Leach Solution (”PLS”)
through the heap.
"   Detects dry zones to enable optimization of irrigation applicator density.
"   Detects flooded areas and perched water table to predict geotechnical
instability.
"   Ideal for all heap types – on-off pad, permanent pad, short or long cycle times
and high clay content operations such as, low grade and Run of Mine heap
leaching.
"   Models that are used to predict the optimum end-point of the heap may be
calibrated to heap actual conditions. Therefore, maximizing metal recovery and
reducing operating cost.

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 Sensoil VMS :Applications

Acid Mine Drainage and Leaks

"   The VMS reduces the risk of catastrophic geotechnical

slope failure of a heap due to early detection of flooded or
perched zones. Likewise it can provide environmental
monitoring underneath and downstream of the leaching
facilities as well as the permeability of solution dam walls.

"   Also ideal to measure water infiltration and solute

transport into unsaturated zones, such as monitoring
dams or pond wall breaches.

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 Observation
Sediment
well
sampling

Groundwater

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 Worldwide Installations

Belgium

Spain

USA

Israel

Namibia

South Africa

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 Sensoil VMS : Case Studies
Andarax River, Spain Buffels River, South Africa

Wadi Arava, Israel Zukim, Israel

Vadose zone Monitoring systems which were installed under rivers and reservoirs allowed continuous
monitoring of water infiltration during flood events. Data that was collected by the VMS enabled direct
calculation of the percolation flow velocities and infiltration fluxes.

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 Gracias  

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