Process
In-situ leach mining involves pumping of a leachate solution into the ore body via a borehole, which circulates through the porous rock dissolving the ore and is extracted via a second borehole.
The leachate solution varies according to the ore deposit: for salt deposits the leachate can be fresh water into which salts can readily dissolve. For copper, acids are generally needed to enhance solubility of the ore minerals within the solution. For uranium ores, the leachate may be acid or sodium bicarbonate.
Read more about this topic: In-situ Leach
Famous quotes containing the word process:
“The invention of photography provided a radically new picture-making process—a process based not on synthesis but on selection. The difference was a basic one. Paintings were made—constructed from a storehouse of traditional schemes and skills and attitudes—but photographs, as the man on the street put, were taken.”
—Jean Szarkowski (b. 1925)
“My advice to people today is as follows: If you take the game of life seriously, if you take your nervous system seriously, if you take your sense organs seriously, if you take the energy process seriously, you must turn on, tune in, and drop out.”
—Timothy Leary (b. 1920)
“A man had better starve at once than lose his innocence in the process of getting his bread.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)