Case Study: LIX® achieves 10% higher copper production with BASF solvent extraction optimization

LIX® - Customer Case Study

BASF worked with LIX®, a copper and cobalt mining customer in the DRC, after the customer changed its hydromet flowsheet from roast/leach of flotation concentrates to whole ore leach. This was expected to increase pregnant leach solution flow to solvent extraction by at least 20%, creating a bottleneck because the SX trains had limited volumetric capacity.

BASF assessed the capacity of the HG SX1 and HG SX2 plants, used its Isocalc SX modelling software to test configuration scenarios, and helped modify the SX stage setup and piping. The result was an increase of about 80 tons, or 10%, per day in copper production, roughly $250 million in additional annual revenue, no significant rise in operating costs, and a 10% reduction in CO2 emissions per ton of copper produced.

LIX®