The column leaching experiment of ore granular media was carried out with the home-made multi-functional experimental apparatus and the pore structure of ore granular media was scanned by the X-ray computed tomography machine before and after leaching.The porosities of each section before and after leaching were calculated based on CT images processing,and the permeability of each zone before and after leaching were also calculated with Carman-Kozeny equation.The permeability evolvement law was disclosed.The results indicate that before leaching the permeability of the ore granular media in different height has not much difference and the value ranges from 5.70×10-4mm 2to 1.11×10 -3mm 2,where the lowest one locates in the bottom zone.After leaching the permeability distributes inhomogeneously along the height of the column and the value ranges from 3.44×10 -4 mm 2 to 2.25×10 -2 mm 2 ,where the lowest one is in the same place.Except for the bottom zone,the permeability of other zones increases after leaching,especially the top zone.Through comparison of the permeability at bottom zone before and after leaching,the whole permeability after leaching decreases by 39.65%that coincides with the measured experimental data.
The method of developing GM（1,1） model is extended on the basis of grey system theory. Conditions for the transfer function that improve smoothness of original data sequence and decrease the revert error are given. The grey dynamic model is first combined with the transfer function to predict the leaching rate in heap leaching process. The results show that high prediction accuracy can be expected by using the proposed method. This provides a new approach to realize prediction and control of the future behavior of leaching kinetics.
The phenomenon of preferential solution flow during dump leaching of low-grade ores was studied.The formative mechanism of preferential solution flow was investigated through analyzing the relationship between permeability and ore diameter,and the relationship between surface tension and ore diameter.The preferential solution flow happened within the fine ore area when the dump was unsaturated.And it could happen within the coarse ore area when the dump became saturated.The results of experiment show that the outflow of coarse ore area increases sharply with higher applied rate.The outflow of fine ore area is greater than that of coarse ore area when the applied rate is below 3.2 L/min,and the preferential solution flow happens in fine ore area.But the preferential solution flow happens in coarse ore area when the applied rate is higher than 3.2 L/min.The result of the experiment is consistent with the mechanism analyzing.
The bioleaching behavior of low-grade copper sulphides under the condition of preferential solution flow was investigated through experiments. The experiment of bioleaching was conducted within the multifunction autocontrol bioleaching apparatus. The results show that the concentrations of Cu2+ and total Fe increase slowly at the beginning. The recovery rate decreases with the increase of depth of dump. The preferential solution happens within the fine region when the application rate is low, and the recovery rate of the fine region is higher than that of the coarse region. The content of fine ore particles within both fine and coarse regions increases during the leaching period, and the preferential solution flow shifts from fine region to coarse region. The surface of the ores at the top of dump is attacked seriously, and the ores in the middle is attacked slightly. There are plenty of crackles on the surface of bottom ores because of the precipitation layer on the surface.
The pore structure images of ore particles located at different heights of leaching column were scanned with X-ray computerized tomography (CT) scanner, the porosity and pore size distribution were calculated and the geometrical shape and connectivity of pores were analyzed based on image process method, and the three dimensional reconstruction of pore structure images was realized. The results show that the porosity of ore particles bed in leaching column is 42.92%, 41.72%, 39.34% at top, middle and bottom zone, respectively. Obviously it has spatial variability and decreases appreciably along the height of the column. The overall average porosity obtained by image processing is 41.33% while the porosity gotten from general measurement method in laboratory is 42.77% showing the results of both methods are consistent well. The pore structure of ore granular media is characterized as a dynamical space network composed of interconnected pore bodies and pore throats. The ratio of throats with equivalent diameter less than 1.91 mm to the total pores is 29.31%, and that of the large pores with equivalent diameter more than 5.73 mm is 2.90%.
