Application of electroosmotic drainage to mining environmental liabilities

ABSTRACT Chile is the largest copper exporter in the world. However, this leadership has significant environmental costs, such as generating large amounts of solid waste from copper ore treatment. The application of the electroosmotic drainage technique to solid residues from leaching and tailings has been proposed to address this problem. The experimental part of this work consists of an experimental design with synthetic solid matrices. The percentage of fine particles and the initial moisture level were defined as factors with three levels. The volume of drained liquid was defined as the response variable. The results showed that electroosmotic drainage was more efficient than gravitational drainage when the moisture content and the percentage of fine material were at their highest levels. The effect of the factors and their interaction was corroborated by an analysis of variance. Finally, an equation was developed to describe the relationship between the response variables and the model factors.