Leticia Martínez worked for more than 10 years in the chemical laboratory of Codelco División El Teniente, in the mining company's operations area in the Andes Mountains. It was there that she learned about the Aprendices program, which she decided to apply for.

“I was working for a contracting company and my dream was to become part of Codelco, to belong to a world-class mining company. I had also been doing chemical analysis for so long that I wanted to make a change in my work life,” he says.

This is how she reached the position she holds today, as operator of the Hydrometallurgy Plant.

What is your job about?

The mission of the Hydrometallurgy Plant is to reduce the environmental impact of all the waste generated in the division. Here we receive the water that percolates from the interior of the mine, which naturally arrives underground and through a pump reaches our unit.

Here they enter the solvent extraction system (Sx), where the copper particles present in that water are trapped and taken to another process, called electrowin, where through ion exchange we obtain copper cathodes.

And what tasks do you perform?

In general, we do field work. Our shift manager gives us the guidelines to maintain the water flows and also the reception of the trucks. He gives us the guidelines and we go to the field, we do visual inspections to see if all the pipes are operational, if we have the reagent tanks operational, the capacity to receive water or powders. Day by day we check that the process is continuous, that it has and complies with all the optimal requirements that the unit requires.

We also control the SX plant, ensuring that the flows are normal, adding reagents, preparing reagents and handling equipment if required: forklift operation, overhead crane operation.