Methodology for production of solvent extraction isotherms for the simulation of extraction mineral processing unit operations

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Hydrometallurgy regroups the techniques used to extract valuable species or metals by dissolving their carrying matrix and to recover these valuable species from the obtained solution. The recovery of the valuable species often requires the use of techniques to selectively extract the valuable species, leaving unwanted ones in the solution. Solvent extraction is one approach to separate valuable species from waste ones. The purpose of this project is to assist SOUTEX in the use of simulation software for solvent extraction processes in the realm of mineral processing and hydrometallurgy. SOUTEX is a consulting engineering firm that provides support to the hydrometallurgical industries. The simulation software used by SOUTEX requires the user to provide input variables that are not readily available to SOUTEX. Owing to the expertise available at Laval University for the simulation of solvent extraction processes, SOUTEX has proposed to conduct a joint project to accelerate the learning process of the simulation package for solvent extraction. More precisely, the solvent extraction simulation modules require the user to provide extraction isotherms for the metal species in the aqueous solution to be processed by solvent extraction. The estimation of the extraction isotherms for a given solvent extraction process requires a significant amount of laboratory test work that can be effectively reduced by the estimation of equilibrium constants of the solvent extraction chemical reactions that can subsequently be used to generate the process isotherms. The proposed project should help developing a method to generate the extraction isotherm by means of equilibrium constants extracted from a minimum number of solvent extraction tests.