ALS has a purpose-built hydrometallurgical testing facility with unprecedented piloting capacity to meet growing demand.
The hydrometallurgical preparation facility is designed specifically for handling potentially hazardous materials such as asbestiform minerals and radionuclides. Fully enclosed, and with extensive ventilation and dust collecting systems, this facility complies with all safety and environmental regulatory requirements. This facility is used for all uranium and REE/REO sample preparation work.
The ALS hydrometallurgy equipment list includes:
- Large Scale Atmospheric Leaching Circuit
- Leach Columns – up to 10 metres high
- Mobile Solvent Extraction Rigs
- Electrowinning Circuits
- Continuous Ion Exchange Resin Carousel Unit
- Continuous Pilot and Mini Pilot Scale Leaching Circuits
- Pilot High Pressure Acid Leaching (HPAL) Plant
- Parr Pressure Reactors (one and five gallon units) for HPAL and POX studies
Hydrometallurgical testing services include:
- Comminution – crushing, grinding, large scale piloting, AG/SAG, ball/rod mills, HPGR
- Resin-in-Pulp, Resin-in-Solution, Resin Ion Exchange
- Precipitation
- Solvent Extraction
- Solution Purification
- Agglomeration and Percolation
- In-Situ leaching
- Pressure leaching including HPAL and POX
- Atmospheric leaching – bacterial, heap/column, agitation, acid, alkaline and more
- On-site Process Support
To assist in optimising the response of ores to hydrometallurgical processing, ALS can gather quantitative data on the metallurgical characteristics using QEMSCAN®, X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), HyLogger™ and other optical microscopy techniques.
HPAL
Batch Solvent Extraction