Highlights Saccharides assessed as combined cryoprotectant, preservative and prebiotic. Application is freeze dried topical probiotic of Lactobacillus plantarum . Inulin was best as cryoprotectant, but did not protect cells over storage. Best combined performance using sucrose with storage at 4 °C. Room temperature storage only feasible with skimmed milk (positive control).

This study presents an investigation, using 3D X-ray micro computed tomography (μCT), into the effect of sulfide mineral position within an ore particle on leaching efficiency. Three sections of an unsaturated mini-leaching column that had been packed with agglomerated low-grade, low-porosity chalcopyrite ore and leached with an acidified ferric iron solution were imaged at different stages of a 102 day experiment. Image analysis was used to quantify changes in the mineral content and the influence on this of the mineral distance from the ore particle surface, local voidage and radial position within the column. The main factor affecting the mineral recovery was identified to be proximity of the mineral to the ore particle surface, with recovery decreasing with increasing distance from the ore surface. A maximum leaching penetration was observed to exist at 2 mm from the surface, beyond which no recovery was achieved. Higher recoveries at the column wall indicated that preferential flow in this higher voidage had an additional, albeit smaller, impact on leaching efficiency.

Liquid irrigation is one of the key process control parameters following the construction of an ore leaching heap. This study uses 3D magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to examine noninvasively the effect of liquid flowrate changes on heap hydrology when drip irrigation is used. Experimental results from a vertical column show that the increase in flowrate causes an increase in the number of rivulets in the ore bed. The new rivulets were found to be thicker, and their development caused an increase in liquid-solid contacting area which is considered advantageous for metal ion recovery. Experiments performed on larger samples showed that the effects of flowrate changes were limited to the region directly below the drip emitter because the increase in flowrate caused an increase in macro-pore flow and not capillary retention of liquid. Therefore the increase in flowrate was not found to perturb liquid distribution patterns in a way that would be substantially advantageous to heap leaching recoveries.

Abstract:The distribution of the metal-bearing mineral grains within a particulate ore prepared for leaching, and the impact of this spatial heterogeneity on overall extraction efficiency is of key importance to a mining industry that must continuously target ever-reducing grades and more complex ore bodies. If accessibility and recovery of the target minerals is to be improved, a more detailed understanding of the behaviour of the system must be developed. We present an in situ analysis using X-ray computed tomography to quantify the rates of volume reduction of sulfide mineral grains in low grade agglomerated copper bearing ores during a miniature laboratory scale column leaching experiment. The data shows the scale of the heterogeneity in the leaching behaviour, with an overall reduction of sulphide mineral grains of 50%, but that this value masks significant mm 3 to cm 3 scale variability in reduction. On the scale of individual ore fragments, leaching efficiency ranged from 22% to 99%. We use novel quantitative methods to determine the volume fraction of the sulfide that is accessible to the leachate solution.

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The quantitative effect of particle shape, porosity, wettability, particle size, and solution viscosity on the residence time distribution (RTD) profiles of non-reactive, steady-state, drip-irrigated ore beds characteristic of heap leaching systems is presented. Results were obtained using step-up tracer tests and allowed for the analysis of preferential flow behaviour within the systems. The key findings were as follows. Increased particle sphericity enhanced channelling in beds of smaller particles, but not for larger particle sizes. Higher particle wettability caused greater liquid dispersion during both initial wetting studies and at steady-state fluid flux. Higher porosity levels and the inclusion of fines in mixed sized beds resulted in longer average solute residence times, higher liquid hold-up, longer solution and tracer breakthrough times, and increases in drain-down moisture percentages. Increasing the irrigation fluid’s viscosity, reflective of the increase in ionic concentrations in leach solutions, reduced both the solution and tracer breakthrough times and increased dispersion with signs of more discontinuous or isolated fluid volumes at steady-state. These results highlighted the importance of the inclusion of fines in agglomerated beds to improve uniform wetting especially those with low to moderate particle porosities (<2.5 m2/g specific surface area). The viscosity results suggest that there may be changes in preferential flow extent, due to variations in viscosity owing to the increasing sulphate concentration within the liquid phase in heaps and with time.

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Raw algal lipids (RALs) and their derivatives (fatty acid methyl esters; FAMEs) were investigated as biocollectors for the recovery of coal from ash-rich fine coal waste by froth flotation. Testing was done on fine coal discards from two South African sites—a high ash (50%), high sulphur (5.7%) sample and a lower ash (26%), low sulphur (0.91%) sample. The yield and recovery of combustibles on using biocollectors was similar to, or better than, with oleic acid, a polar collector demonstrated as a good collector in previous research. The RALs and FAMEs reduced the ash and sulphur content of the combustible fraction of the high ash-high sulphur sample to between 23–28% and 1.9–3.3%, respectively. The chemical modification of RALs to FAMEs provided potential for improving the selectivity of the recovery of combustibles. It also resulted in a change of the optimum operating pH, with RALs yielding better results at the natural pH of the sample (pH 2.7), while FAMEs performed best at pH 7.