Dynamical Models for Uranium Leaching — Production and Remediation Cases

Leaching is a process of mass transfer between immobile mineral aggregate phases and mobile phases (reactive fluid). For such reactive transport phenomena a dynamical compartment model was developed. It combines solute transport in double porosity media with geochemistry (kinetics as well as thermodynamics described by PHREEQC). Besides several other applications, the model has been used to simulate quite different real-world scenarios related to uranium mining: (i) production case at Beverley mine and (ii) remediation case at Konigstein mine.