Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul 120-749, South Korea.
Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Univ. of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada N6A 5B9.
J Environ Manage. 2014 Mar 15;135:73-80. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2014.01.012. Epub 2014 Feb 10.
Oxidation of reactive mine tailings and subsequent generation of acid mine drainage (AMD) have been long recognized as the largest environmental concern for the mining industry. Laboratory studies on utilization of coal fly ash in management of reactive mine tailings have shown reducing water and oxygen infiltration into tailings matrix, thus preventing oxidation of sulphide minerals and acid generation. However, few data from field studies to evaluate the performance of co-placement of mine tailings and fly ash (CMF hereafter) are reported in the open literature. This paper documents the construction and instrumentation of three CMF systems on the Musselwhite mine located in Ontario, Canada and presents results of 3-year real time monitoring. The field data indicates that the CMFs reduced the ingress of water due to cementation generated by hydration of fly ash. It was also found that the electrical conductivity of leachate from CMFs decreased in the early stage of co-placement, compared to the control. With further study, the principle and approach demonstrated in this paper can be adopted as a sustainable technology in the mine tailings management.
矿山尾矿的氧化以及随之产生的酸性矿山排水（AMD）一直是采矿业面临的最大环境问题。实验室研究表明，利用粉煤灰来管理反应性矿山尾矿可以减少水和氧气渗透到尾矿基质中，从而防止硫化物的氧化和酸的生成。然而，在公开文献中，很少有来自现场研究的数据来评估矿山尾矿和粉煤灰共置（CMF）的性能。本文介绍了在加拿大安大略省的 Musselwhite 矿山建造和安装三个 CMF 系统的情况，并展示了 3 年实时监测的结果。现场数据表明，CMF 通过粉煤灰的水合作用产生的胶结作用减少了水的进入。还发现，与对照相比，CMF 中浸出液的电导率在共置的早期阶段降低了。随着进一步的研究，本文中所展示的原理和方法可以作为一种可持续的尾矿管理技术。
