Minera Antucoya is an operation of Antofagasta Minerals, located in the Antofagasta Region of Chile. It is an openpit copper mine that produces high-purity copper cathodes through leaching, solvent extraction, and electrowinning (SX-EW) processes.

During nighttime hours, the operational phases of the open-pit mine experience a recurring meteorological phenomenon known as thermal inversion, where the air temperature at the bottom of the pit is higher than at the surface. This thermal gradient inhibits the natural convective movement of air, creating a “thermal cap” that prevents the vertical dispersion of suspended dust.

Pollution generated by mining equipment becomes trapped within the pit, affecting operational visibility, ventilation conditions, and workers’ occupational health.

Current actions focus on reducing dust during loading and haulage stages, but do not address the thermal inversion itself — which constitutes the core challenge.

Develop and/or implement an innovative technological or environmental management solution capable of eliminating, mitigating, fragmenting, or disrupting the thermal inversion phenomenon within the pit, facilitating the natural or assisted evacuation and dispersion of air pollutants generated by mining operations.

The solution must be technically viable and economically feasible for implementation in a large-scale open-pit mine, considering typical phase dimensions and logistical limitations of equipment and energy. It must operate safely and sustainably, without creating adverse impacts on other critical variables (such as geotechnical stability, energy consumption, or secondary emissions).

Companies, startups, institutes, universities, research centers, and other legally established entities in accordance with the laws of their country of origin are eligible to apply. Natural persons (individual applicants) are excluded from this call.

We extend this invitation to foster collaboration and leverage technological and/or business capabilities among companies, entrepreneurs, and other entities. For teams or consortia, the lead institution must be clearly identified in the application.

Consulting, advisory services and engineering studies.

The proposed solution may come from various disciplines, such as:

• Applied physical or meteorological engineering (modifying local thermal gradients).
• Energy or mechanical systems (air injection, directional fans, thermal towers, etc.).
• Operational or predictive management strategies (microclimatic modeling and dynamic emission control).
• Scope:
• The solution must be technically viable and economically feasible to implement in a large-scale open-pit mine, considering the typical dimensions of the mining phases and the logistical constraints of equipment and energy.
• It must operate safely and sustainably, without generating adverse impacts on other critical variables (such as geotechnical stability, energy consumption, or secondary emissions).
• It may include pilot tests or controlled trials in specific pit areas.
• The proposal must include effectiveness measurement based on indicators such as dust concentration (mg/m³), visibility, vertical thermal gradient, and dissipation time of thermal inversion.