Liquid-Liquid Custom Mixer-Settler Technology Development and Piloting

Hatch是一家全球性的多学科工程公司，为包括采矿、选矿和金属行业在内的各种行业提供服务。2012年，加拿大这一部门对国内生产总值的贡献约为526亿美元。液-液萃取是采矿和选矿工业中的重要单元操作。在液-液萃取中，溶质(金属)的转移是通过接触两种不相容的液体发生的，通常是水和有机溶剂。通过萃取剂将金属从水相转移到有机相。金属提取行业传统技术的缺点包括使用机械搅拌器，产生大范围的液滴尺寸，增加停留时间，大量昂贵的有机溶剂库存，以及大型沉淀罐。此外，大量有机溶剂的使用增加了工厂占地面积，降低了工厂安全，增加了对环境的影响，而且由于环境法规，必须回收有机溶剂，这会增加工艺成本。

Hatch, a global multidisciplinary engineering company, provides services to a wide range of industries including the mining, mineral processing, and metals industry. The GDP contribution of this sector in Canada was about $52.6 billion in 2012. Liquid-liquid extraction is an important unit operation in the mining and mineral processing industry. In liquid-liquid extraction, the transfer of a solute (metal) takes place by contacting two immiscible liquids, usually water and an organic solvent. The metal is transferred from the aqueous phase to the organic phase by a means of an extractant. Disadvantages of conventional technologies in the metal extraction industry include the use of mechanical agitators that generate a wide range of droplet size, increase in residence time, large inventories of expensive organic solvent, and large settler tanks. Furthermore, the use of large volumes of organic solvents increase plant footprint, decrease plant safety, increase environmental impact and, due to environmental regulations, it is necessary to recover the organic solvent, which introduces additional costs to the process.