Slimes and ultra-fines present a challenge to metallurgists and tailings engineers. Many have spent years thinking about alternative ways to store, process or dry this troublesome mining waste stream. The characteristic of many slimes streams can make tailings management, slurry storage and filtration very tricky.
ing and reutilizing mine tailings waste for a more sustainable future while exploring current practices that have benetted ecosystems and communities. Keywords Mine tailings · Critical minerals · Dam failure · Rare earth elements · Remining · Reprocessing 1 Introduction The practice of mining for ores and processing mineral
For gold tailings generated by chemical leaching processing, these processes are water-based, meaning tailings from the mill are pumped as a slurry to the Tailings Storage Facility (TSF) where they are stored in fully engineered clay lined dams. Gold mine tailings dust can be easily blown up in the wind and could easily lost in the …
Indeed, the historical tailings cumulated in the dams and fresh tailings generated from mineral processing plants can be evaluated as raw material for sustainable development and circular economy. Hence, the harmful impact of tailings can be eliminated while using them as potential source in different industrial sectors.
Tailings are mixtures of crushed rock and processing fluids from mills, washeries or concentrators that remain after the extraction of economic metals, minerals, mineral fuels or coal from the mine resource (e.g., Fig. 1 a; Hudson-Edwards et al., 2001, Younger and Wolkersdorfer, 2004, Lottermoser, 2007).The word 'tailings' is generic as …
A standard method of reprocessing involves dragging tailings from an existing dam back to the concentrator and using required mineral processing solutions to liberate the valuable metals.
The familiar practice of containing mineral tailings slurry by conventional dam and dykes is no longer considered acceptable in many countries ... The continuous solid bowl scroll decanter centrifuge is widely used in mineral processing (Consortium of Tailings Management Consultants, 2012). Pre-treatment of fine tailings is necessary …
Tailings were deposited in a 130-ha tailings storage facility (TSF) ca. 2 km north of the open pit, with an estimated tailings mass of 5.5–7.5 Mt.12, 13 The LREO grade has been reported to range between 2 and 4.5%.23 The processed tailings were pumped to the tailings dam which was constructed using metasedimentary waste rock. The …
tailings dam failures with tragic consequences, caused by a variety of factors, some of which may never be fully understood. However, there is ... significantly decrease the volume of waste material produced in the extraction and processing of mineral ore, while also offering major water and energy usage reductions for each tonne of metal or ...
There have been several notable tailings dam failures in recent years, some of the most significant ones are: Brumadinho dam disaster (Brazil, 2019): On January 25, 2019, a tailings dam owned by Brazilian mining company Vale collapsed, releasing approximately 12 million cubic meters of mining waste into the surrounding area. The …
Providing superior operational and advisory services in hydro mining, tailings deposition and tailings dam water pond management to the mining, minerals processing, energy, and petrochemical industries. Hydro Mining. Hydro Mining entails spraying a jet stream of water against a tailings face to create a slurry.
The GISTM's establishment has made the safety and integrity of tailings dams a top focus for reputable mining and metals companies. Underpinned by an integrated approach to tailings management, implementation of the 15 principles and 77 auditable requirements across six topic areas, aim to prevent catastrophic failures and enhance the ...
Processing ores after mining to concentrate and extract metal values produces tailings (gangue mineral phases) that can represent >95% of the total ore mass (Adiansyah et al., 2015). With processing and hydrometallurgical routes requiring large volumes of water, the tailings are generated as dilute slurries, which were typically kept dilute or ...
Mine tailings, the byproduct of mining and mineral processing, are increasingly mass produced as a result of increased demand for metals and minerals as well as the …
To set the scene, we first describe the characteristics of tailings and of construction of tailings dams, and the common causes of their failure. We conclude with …
Data from different sources (Mining Journal Research Services, 1996; UNEP and ICOLD, 2001; US Committee on Large Dams, 1994) enable identifying 149 cases of tailings dam failures around the world during the period 1960–2020, with 22 cases recorded from 2016 to 2020 (Table 7), a period during which a tailings dam failure …
Slimes Dam Building: This is a variant of the dewatering cyclone, where the underflow is used to build the tailings dam wall. Again, the cyclone underflow is the required product, and the client usually wants the maximum tonnage split to the underflow. Typical Applications: Building tailings dams, Reinforcing dam walls.
Mining generates 13 billion tonnes per year of potentially toxic wet slurry waste, called tailings, commonly deposited in tailings storage facilities (TSF).
In this e-book, mineral processing OEM, , explains that reprocessing involves removing tailings from an existing dam or paste TSF via dredging or excavation, mixing them with water and pumping them to a reprocessing plant.
Most mines produce tailings as the final waste from mining the ore body, ore processing, and recovering the valuable metals and minerals. Mine tailings are the …
Reprocessing the tailings to achieve critical sources from existing tailings dams can reduce the extraction of new mineral deposits and make them profitable for …
Tailings management has long been a concern in mineral processing operations, and recently has been brought back to our attention after multiple facility failures. In this month's blog, we look at how switching from a reactive to a proactive approach to tailings management can provide more long term economic, social and safety benefits. ...
Paste backfill is chiefly manufactured with processing and/or dam tailings, hydraulic binders, mineral and/or chemical admixtures, and water. Depending on its ultimate function (as a ground support or tailings disposal) in underground mines, paste can also contain coarse and reinforcement products, such as sand, fiber, and 3D printed …
Spirals in Australian mineral processing ... or jig designed to facilitate mineral separation based on density. The specific gravity of a mineral is the ratio of its density to that of water. ... The UX7 ultrafine spiral concentrator is a cost-effective recovery treatment for tailings dams material, tailings storage facilities, high-grade fine ...
1. Introduction1.1. Background. Mineral processing plants produce two types of products, categorised as either economic or non-economic. The non-economic product, usually known as tailings, consists of waste (by-product), small quantities of valuable minerals or metals, chemicals, organics, and process water (Lottermoser, …
Mining is an important industry, accounting for 6.9% of global GDP. However, global development promotes accelerated demand, resulting in the accumulation of hazardous waste in land, sea, and air environments. It reached 7 billion tonnes of mine tailings generated yearly worldwide, and 19 billion solid tailings will be accumulated by …
They started working with the material present in the Colihues tailings dam until removal of all its contents. In 2015, exploitation and processing of the Cauquenes tailings dam began, together with fresh MTs from the El Teniente Division (Henderson, 2019). The MVC plant has the capacity to process up to 185,000 tons per day (tpd) of …
Dry stack tailings is a new type of tailings reprocessing process, which refers to the method of concentrating and dehydrating the tailings slurry output from the beneficiation process to form slag with low water content, sedimentation and solidification, and stacking slag on the site and transporting the slag to a fixed location for dry …
A tailings dam and processing plant at a gold mine in Australia's Northern Territory. Credit: Steve Lovegrove/Shutterstock. In 2019, when the Brumadinho tailings dam breached at the Córrego do Feijão iron ore mine in Brazil, wiping out an entire village and killing 270 people, the world determinedly turned its attention to mine tailings ...
A standard method of reprocessing involves dragging tailings from an existing dam back to the concentrator and using required mineral processing solutions …
There is a need to define mine tailings in a clear, precise, multidisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and holistic manner, considering not only geotechnical and hydraulic concepts but also integrating environmental and geochemical aspects with implications for the sustainability of mining. This article corresponds to an independent study that …
There are thousands of active tailings storage facilities (TSFs) or water tailings located around the world. Tailings dams store mine-affected, acid, caustic and/or brine water generated through industrial processes. …
Minerals and metals are essential to the economic and social development of our society, and they are critical to modern life. The continuous exploitation of mineral resources has led to a large amount of waste, which has a large impact on the environment. One of the main streams of wastes in mining is mine tailings, which are produced in …
The Global Tailings Review, which was convened in the wake of the 2019 Brumadinho tailings dam collapse in Brazil, ... In many cases, it's safer and more cost effective to turn the tailings back into a slurry and pump it back to the mineral processing plant for treatment or create a new dedicated plant nearby.
We can therefore assume that hundreds of billions of tonnes of copper tailings are currently sitting in TSFs across the globe. And that's before we even start to look at tailings generated through other mining activities. Acceptable metal recoveries from mineral processing vary depending on ore grades and characteristics.