ASSIGNMENT

UNIT OPERATION IN CHEMICAL PROCESS (CMT405)

SEMESTER MARCH'20-JULY'20

NAME ID GROUP

1. MUHAMMAD HAZIQ BIN ABU 2019615218 RAS2452A

BAKAR
GROUP
MEMBER 2. NUR HASLINDA BINTI HASSAN 2019291424 RAS2452A

3. MOHAMAD BADRIZ BIN MOHD 2019252728 RAS2452A

RIDZUAN
TOPIC LEACHING
TABLE OF CONTENT

NO. TITLE PAGE

1 1.0) Introduction
2

2 1.1) What is leaching

2

3 1.2) Example of Leaching process

3

4 1.3) Working Principle of Leaching

4-5

5 1.4) Leaching application for Industrial use

5-6

6 1.5) Type of Equipment for leaching

6

7 2.0) Equipment used for Leaching process

6

8 2.1) Agitated Vessels

6-8

9 2.2) Percolation tanks (A Component for Ground

Water Recharging) 8-9

10 References
10

1|Leaching
1.0 Introduction to leaching

1.1 What is leaching?

Leaching is a process that frequently used in the extraction of substances from
solids. Leaching process can be done either via industrial process or natural process.
This process describes the release of organic and in organic contaminants or
radionuclides from a solid phase into water phase that influence by various processes
such as desorption, complexation and mineral dissolution. Leaching is a universal
process. For example, water will leach the components of any material that comes in
contact with from its surface or the interior of the material. By using this process, the ore
of a metal can be concentrated by causing a chemical reaction with a reagent which
lead to the ore to dissolve and the impurities remain undissolved.
In a simple word, leaching process occurs when extraction of a substance from
solid material that into contact with a liquid. In this process, liquid is vital as it facilitates
the ability to extract a given substance from a solid matrix.

Diagram 1: step by step leaching process

First, the solvent contacts the solid matrix. A solvent is normally a liquid that
dissolves a substance or a solution. The substance dissolved by a solvent is a solute.
Thus, the liquid will be the solvent and the solute will be the element you want to remove
from the solid matrix. Next, the solvent moves from this matrix into the solid matrix,
separating the material, or the solute, so it can be stored. This step is generally called
percolation, which is actually just a technical term to filter. The solution you want from
the solid matrix is basically filtered out, or extracted, using a solvent.

2|Leaching
1.2 Example of leaching process
Example of leaching process can be seen from the leaching of bauxite
(Al3O3•2H2O) with a heated and concentrated solution of sodium hydroxide. The
concentrated NaOH dissolves the aluminium present in the bauxite and impurities like
Fe2O3, TiO2, and SiO2 are not dissolved by the reagent. This chemical reaction can be
written as:

Al3O3•2H2O + 2NaOH 2NaAlO2 + 3H2O

Figure 1: example of extraction process of Aluminium from Bauxite ore

Other than that, gold also undergo leaching process to remove unwanted
component from the ore. In the presence of activated carbon, a slurry of the ground ore
is mixed with cyanide. The carbon has a very high affinity to the complex of aurocyanides
and adsorbs the gold from solution resulting in very high carbon loads (typically 1000-
4000 g / t). The charged carbon is removed from the slurry at the end of the leach, and
the adsorbed gold is extracted with sodium hydroxide and cyanide solutions at high
temperature and pressure to form a high value electrolyte solution. Gold bullion is then
extracted by bioleaching from the electrolyte. The chemical reaction can be written as:

4Au + 8NaCN + O2 + 2H2O → 4Na[Au(CN)2] + 4NaOH

Figure 2:The metallurgy of cyanide gold leaching

3|Leaching
1.3 Working principle of leaching
Leaching can be batch, semi batch or continuous. It usually operates at an
elevated temperature to increase the solubility of the solute in the solvent. The feed to
a leaching system typically is solid consisting of basically insoluble carrier material and
a soluble compound which usually desirable. This feed must be prepared by grinding or
chopping, then mix it with a liquid solvent. The desired material dissolves and leaves
when the liquid drawn off as overflow.
Leaching is concerned with extraction of a soluble constituent from a solid
means of a solvent. This process can be use both for the production of a concentrated
solution of a valuable solid material or to remove an insoluble solid such as pigment from
a contaminated soluble material. Method used for the extraction can be determine by
the proportion of soluble constituent present, distribution throughout the solid, nature of
the solid and the size of particle.
Once the solute is uniformly dispersed into the solid, the material near the surface
will be dissolved first and leaving porous structure in the solid residue. The solvent will
have to penetrate this outer layer before reaching further solute. The process will
become progressively more difficult and extraction rate will fall. If the solute become high
proportion to the solid, the porous structure may break down almost immediately to give
a fine deposit of insoluble residue and access to the solvent to the solute will not be
impeded. Therefore, this process can be divided into three parts. First, the change of
the solute as it dissolves in the solvent. Secondly, the diffusion through the solvent in
the pores to the outside of the particle and lastly is the transfer of the solute from the
solution in contact with particle to the main bulk of the solution. Each one of the three
process may responsible for limiting the extraction process. Although the first process
usually occurs rapidly but it has negligible effect on the overall rate.
For some cases, the soluble material is distributed in small isolated pockets such
as gold dispersed in rock. In such cases material is crushed so that all the soluble
material is exposed to the solvent. If the solid has a cellular structure, the extraction rate
will generally comparatively low because the cell wall provide an additional resistance.
As an example, extraction of sugar from beet the cell wall performs the important
function of impeding the extraction of unwanted components of relatively high molecular
weight and the beet should be prepared in long strips so that relatively small proportion
of the cell is ruptured.

A simple example that can be analogised to the leaching process is the making
of green tea. The components used in making the green tea can be related to working

4|Leaching
principle of leaching. First, the green tea bag is the solid mixture while the hot water is
liquid source. The green tea is to be extracted is the desired substance. The exact
process is steeping the green tea bag into a cup of hot water. The colour of hot water
changes and the green is also extracted from bag into the water.

1.4 Leaching application for industrial use

Leaching can be used widely in industries nowadays and many industries greatly
benefits from the vast number of leaching applications. For example, leaching can be
use in biological and food processing industries to separate sugar from sugar beets hot
water

Figure 3: Sugar beet extracted to produce sugar

Other than that, in food processing industries, oil can be produce by

extracting peanuts, soybeans, sunflower seeds, cotton seeds and halibut livers.

Figure 4: sunflower oil from sunflower seeds

In pharmaceutical industries, medicines are produced by leaching plant roots,

leaves and stems. It is important to find chemical processing techniques applicable to
the purification and separation of the essential pharmaceutical components with the
recent advent of medicinal and legal marijuana. Not only that, leaching is also
applicable in the metal processing industry. Leaching is used to remove the desired
metal from their ores which usually formed by many undesired components. For
5|Leaching
 instance, gold is leached from its ore using an aqueous cyanide solution. The leaching
process of a gold is also called as Macarthur-forrest Process.

1.5 Types of equipment used for leaching process

There are two types of leaching, unsteady state operation and steady state
(continuous) operation. Example of unsteady state operation is shank system, in situ
leaching, heap leaching, percolation tanks and filter press leaching. Meanwhile, for
steady state operation is agitated vessels, thickeners, Kennedy extractor and Bollman
extractor.

2.0 Equipment used for leaching process

2.1 Agitated vessels

Figure 5: Agitated vessels

Agitation of liquids
• The unit operation is used to prepare liquid–mixture by bringing in contact
two liquids in a mechanically agitated vessel or container.
• Agitation refers to the induced motion of liquid in some defined may,
usually in circulatory pattern and is achieved by some mechanical device.

Why agitation?
• Dispenses a liquid which is immiscible with the other liquid by forming an
emulsion or suspension of few drops.
• Suspends relatively lighter solid particles
• Promotes heat transfer between the liquid in the think or container and a
coil or jacket surrounding the container
• Blends miscible liquids (CH2O and water)

6|Leaching
 • The equipment consists of a tank with an insulated jacket, baffles, shaft
with motor, impeller, and other accessories such as thermometer and dip-
leg.

• Two types of impellers:

➢ Radial flow impellers (flow is induced in radial or tangential
directions)
➢ Axial flow impellers (currents are parallel to the axis of impeller
shaft)
• Two types of geometrical configurations:

Flow patterns in agitated vessels

There are three principal currents in the vessel during agitation: (a) radial
(perpendicular to the shaft) (b) tangential (tangential to the circular path) (c)
longitudinal (parallel to the shaft)

1. Radial
2. Longitudinal
3. Swirling

Notes
• Tangential component induces vortex and swirling, which in turn create
stratification responsible for non–uniform mixing. In such case fluid
particles are followed by another fluid particle.
7|Leaching
 • At relatively higher rpm, the center of vortex may reach impeller and air
may be sucked in. This may not be desirable.
• Swirling can be minimized by placing the shaft slightly away from the
center of the vessel, or by putting baffles. In the latter–configuration,
tangential streamlines will also be reduced.

2.2 Percolation tanks (A Component for Ground Water Recharging)

The percolation tanks are mostly earthen dams with masonry structure only for
spillway. These are the most prevalent structures in India as a recharge measure in both
alluvial and hard rock formations of the groundwater reservoirs. For quick recharge,
percolation tanks should be placed on highly fractured and weathered soil. In case of
alluvium, the bouldary formations are ideal for locating percolation tanks. The aquifer to
be recharged should have sufficient thickness of permeable vadose zone to
accommodate recharge. The size of percolation tank should be controlled by the
percolation potential of the strata in the tank bed rather than yield of the catchment.
Percolation tanks are usually designed for storage capacity of 0.1 to 0.5 MCM and a
ponded column of water should generally be between 3 and 4.5 m.

Figure 6 : earthen dams having masonry structures for spillway only and are
preferred to be constructed over second or third order streams.

Major challenges being faced

The artificial methods of harvesting the rainwater are dependent majorly on

natural rainfall conditions and soil texture. Hence, it becomes challenging to utilize the
substantial amount of harvested water for percolation underground to feed the ground
water table. The regions where the soils are sandy and porous, example, lateritic soil
8|Leaching
in Konkan region, there is a rapid loss of rain water due to higher rate of percolation.
The water holding capacity of such soil is less and even after a heavy rainfall, not
sufficient amount of water can be retained on the surface of tanks. This rapid
percolation of water also leads to heavy loss of plant nutrients viz., Ca, Mg, S, K, etc.,
resulting in soil becoming acidic.

Silting is another major issue of concern. The muddy runoff from the watershed
reduces the initial efficiency of a percolation tank due to silting of its bottom. In an
average of 5 to 6 Monsoon seasons, the tank bed can accumulate about 0.20 to 1.00
meters of silt. Due to its permeability, silt reduces the storage capacity of the tank. It
also impedes the rate of vertical flow of recharge. Though, silting can be minimized if
the watershed is well-forested and has a cover of grass, bushes and crops.

9|Leaching
References
• Richardson, J. F.; Harker, J. H.; Backhurst, J. R. (2002), Richardson, J. F.;
Harker, J. H.; Backhurst, J. R. (eds.), "CHAPTER 10 - Leaching", Chemical
Engineering (Fifth Edition), Chemical Engineering Series, Butterworth-
Heinemann, pp. 502–541, doi:10.1016/b978-0-08-049064-9.50021-7
• Leaching: Definition & Process - Video & Lesson Transcript. (n.d.). Retrieved
from https://study.com/academy/lesson/leaching-definition-
process.html#:~:text=Leaching is a process of,is dissolved in a liquid.&text=A
liquid must come into, substance from the solid matrix.
• 2.0 Modern Leaching Applications - CHE 433: Modern Separations, Leaching.
(n.d.). Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/site/che433nielsen/modern-
applications
• Default, S., & Default, A. S. (2016, October 04). Core Group. Retrieved from
https://www.coreresources.com.au/the-metallurgy-of-cyanide-gold-leaching-an-
introduction/
•
• RAIN HARVEST PRODUCTS & SYSTEMS PVT. LTD., C. (2018, 05).
Percolation Tanks – A Component for Ground Water Recharging [Web log
post]. Retrieved 06, 2020, from http://www.chaitanyaproducts.com/blog/pe
rcolation-tanks-a-component-for-ground-water-recharging/.
• Massey, B. S., & Ward-Smith, J. (1998). Mechanics of fluids (Vol. 1).
Crc Press.

10 | L e a c h i n g