Repair and recovery: computed tests

Computed. Recovery claims fail at verification; these are the two arithmetic traps that cause it.

1. Mass balance: a 2% loss is a 2% yield claim

Unaccounted stream	Yield error
1%	-1%
2%	-2%
5%	-5%
10%	-10%

The trap: recovery is usually computed as product-out over feed-in, ignoring streams that were not assayed. A 5% unassayed stream is a 5% phantom yield.

2. Concentration costs water

Concentration factor	Water to evaporate
2×	0.5
5×	0.8
10×	0.9

Going to 10× requires evaporating 90% of the water. Practical: any recovery route whose economics depend on high concentration factors is an evaporation plant in disguise.

3. Verification order

Mass balance first, then purity, then repeatability. A route that fails mass balance cannot be evaluated by the other two.

Incoprea Research · 3 November 2026. Composition and computation. No experiment performed.