Design criteria and Preliminary flow diagram mass balance

Initial thoughts
Between scientific research and people life there
are:

Engineering design

Production or manufacturing plants

Initial thoughts
The engineering design is a methodical series of steps
that engineers use in creating functional products and
processes. This is the most important step in the
evolution of life on earth.

The engineering design is part of the feasibility study

which is the evaluation of capital investment and
operating cost.
Initial thoughts
The feasibility study of process design is done in
three steps:
Level I study:
Order of magnitude estimate is based on plant cost versus plant production rate
(probable accuracy of estimate up to 50%).
Level II study:
Pre-feasibility study is based on major items of equipment cost data. This level
requires knowledge of preliminary flow diagram mass balance, which helps to do
the preliminary engineering estimation (probable accuracy of estimate up to
20%).
Level III study:
Feasibility study is based on complete details of engineering estimation (probable
accuracy of estimate up to 10%).
Initial thoughts
The estimation of capital investment at level I (on the
global cost of the plant) is most of the time dangerous
because:

the price of major items depends on country of origin

and the distance.
you do not know if your feed material will follow the
same flow diagram.
Initial thoughts
Pre-feasibility study (level II) is conducted first to sort
out applicable scenarios. It is desirable to do some pre-
feasibility studies of your own or with help of consultant
before evaluation feasibility study done by engineering
offices. If you find out early that the proposed plant
design project idea is not feasible, it will save your
money
Initial thoughts
At the level II, the important part of pre-feasibility study
that you must know is the preliminary flow diagram
mass balance. Establishment of the preliminary flow
diagram mass balance needs the knowledge of:
The flow diagram of the circuit.
The design criteria and metallurgical constraints of
unit processes.
Types of copper hydro-metallurgical circuit
Unit processes of copper hydro-metallurgical circuit:
Leaching
Solid liquid separation
Copper solvent extraction
Copper electrowinning
Effluent neutralization
Types of copper hydro-metallurgical circuit

There are two size distributions of feed material of

leaching unit process:
Crushing feed material
80% bigger than 15 mm: Heap leaching and vat leaching
Milling feed material
80% lower than 150 m: Agitated leaching
Types of copper hydro-metallurgical circuit

There are two types of Milling technologies of feed

material:
Milling in water: The milling media is water. The
leaching unit process is fed with pre-leach filter cake or
pre-leach thickener underflow.
Milling in raffinate: The milling media is raffinate. The
leaching unit process is fed with the hydrocyclone
overflow
Types of copper hydro-metallurgical circuit

There are two types of configurations of leaching and

solid liquid separation unit processes:
Leaching and solid liquid separation unit processes
are combined: heap leaching and vat leaching.
Leaching and solid liquid separation unit processes
are not combined: agitated leaching.
Types of copper hydro-metallurgical circuit

There are two types of agitated leaching technologies:

Agitated leaching done at atmospheric pressure (oxide

feed material and sulfide feed material using ferric
reagent and bio-leaching technologies)
Agitated leaching done in the autoclave (sulfide feed
material)
Types of copper hydro-metallurgical circuit

There are two types of autoclave leaching of sulfide feed

material:
low temperature (< 150C): sulfur mineral is
transformed partially in sulfate and partially in
elementary sulfur
High temperature (>200C): sulfur mineral is
transformed totally in sulfate
Types of copper hydro-metallurgical circuit

There are two types of stages in solid liquid separation

unit process:

Primary thickener: received pulp from the leaching unit

process.
Washing solid: received underflow of the primary
thickener
Filtration.
Counter current decantation (CCD).
Types of copper hydro-metallurgical circuit
Washing solid unit process:
receives the underflow of the primary thickener and
the washing solution (water or solution)
produces the rich solution (filtrate or overflow of the
first CCD) and the washed solid (post leaching filter
cake or the underflow of the last CCD)
Types of copper hydro-metallurgical circuit

There are two types of configurations of primary

thickener and washing solid:
The overflow of the primary thickener and the rich
solution of washing solid are combined: conventional
circuit (one PLS flow).
The overflow of the primary thickener and the rich
solution of washing solid are not combined: split
circuit (two PLS flows overflow of primary thickener
called High grade PLS and rich solution called Low
grade PLS).
Types of copper hydro-metallurgical circuit

Copper solvent extraction unit process have two steps

(extraction and stripping steps) connected with the
common organic phase.
The extraction step:
Receives PLS and stripped organic
Produces Raffinate and loaded organic
The stripping step:
Receives spent electrolyte and loaded organic
Produces stripped organic and advance electrolyte
Types of copper hydro-metallurgical circuit

The organic phase of copper solvent extraction is a

mixture of:

Extractant: Lix 984N, Acorga .

Diluent: Escaid 100, kerosene

Types of copper hydro-metallurgical circuit

The configurations of extraction step usually used are:

Series: minimum two stages
Parallel: minimum two stages
Series parallel
The configurations of stripping step usually used are
series with:
one stage
Two stages
Types of copper hydro-metallurgical circuit

There are two circuits in copper electrowinning unit

process:

Scavenger cells receives the advance electrolyte (this

circuit bocks the contamination of the soluble organic
phase)

Commercial cells receives the outlet solution of

scavenger cells
Types of copper hydro-metallurgical circuit

Heap leaching (oxide and sulfide)

Heap Cu SX Cu EW
Copper
cathode

Raffinate
Pond Acid
Types of copper hydro-metallurgical circuit
Conventional circuit (oxide)

Acid Rich solution

Primary Residue
Agitated Washing
thickene
UF or leaching solid
r
filter cake
Of Oxide ore Water

Cu SX
Water
Balance
bleed Copper
cathode
Cu EW
Types of copper hydro-metallurgical circuit
Conventional circuit (sulfide ore - < 150c)

Oxygen Rich solution

Residue
Primary Washing
Autoclave
Filter cake thickener solid
of Sulfide
ore Water

Cu SX

Water
Balance
Copper
bleed
cathode
Cu EW
Types of copper hydro-metallurgical circuit
Conventional circuit (sulfide concentrated - <150c)
Filter cake of
Sulfide Rich solution
concentrated
Water Oxygen Residue
Primary Washing
Balance Autoclave thickener solid
bleed
Water

Cu SX

Solid/liquid Neutralization
separation Copper
cathode
Cu EW
Residue Limestone
Types of copper hydro-metallurgical circuit
Conventional circuit (sulfide concentrated >200C)
Oxygen Filter cake of Acid UF or
Sulfide Filter cake of
concentrated oxide ore Rich solution

Agitated Residue
Autoclave Primary Washing
leaching thickener solid

Water

Cu SX

Solid/liquid
separation
Water Copper
balance cathode
bleed Cu EW
Residue
Types of copper hydro-metallurgical circuit
Split circuit with two separated SX circuits (oxide ore)

Acid Water
UF or
Filter cake Residue
Agitated Primary Washing
leaching thickener solid

High grade Low grade

raffinate High raffinate
Low grade
grade
Cu SX
Cu SX

Copper
cathode
Cu EW
Types of copper hydro-metallurgical circuit
Split circuit with two combined SX circuits (oxide ore)

Acid Water
UF or
Filter cake Residue
Agitated Primary Washing
leaching thickener solid

High grade Low grade

raffinate raffinate
High grade Low grade
Extraction Extraction

Stripping

Copper
cathode
Cu EW
Types of copper hydro-metallurgical circuit
Milling in raffinate - split circuit with two separated SX
circuits (oxide ore)
Acid Water

OF Residue
Hydro- Agitated Primary Washing
cyclone leaching thickener solid

UF High grade Low grade

raffinate High raffinate
Low grade
grade
Cu SX
Cu SX
Ball Mill

Copper
Oxide cathode
Ore Cu EW
Design criteria
The paper called Pre-feasibility studies of copper
hydrometallurgical plants gives design criteria of
copper hydrometallurgical plants processing oxide feed
material and procedure to have a preliminary flow
diagram mass balance on Microsoft excel spreadsheet.

Click here to download the paper