School of Geosciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, Wits, 2050, South Africa.
Department of Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering, Luleå University of Technology, SE-97187, Lulea, Sweden.
J Environ Manage. 2021 Oct 1;295:113013. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.113013. Epub 2021 Jun 17.
The quest for steady primary supplies of critical raw materials (CRMs) creates significant waste, which is inevitably generated at each phase of mining and mineral processing. Waste from extraction, separation and refinement of non-renewable natural resources is accumulated globally and creates not only environmental hazards but also economic possibilities. Mine waste management is an expensive and prolonged task but unavoidable. Mine tailings, especially historical ones, can contain economically feasible resources, and given the right condition, such tailings could be reutilised through a waste valorisation concept. A prominent example are the Witwatersrand gold mine tailings in South Africa, which have been reused in small-scale projects. Tailing reutilisation is only possible if a sound classification, sampling and resource modelling framework is established to thoroughly and accurately profile the economic, environmental, health and geometallurgical aspects. Our study on valorisation of mine waste is presented in two parts: Here, in Part I, we focus on the essential components of a mine waste valorisation framework that includes the characterization and development of a systematic sampling framework for consolidated mineralised tailings. The development of a mine waste valorisation framework will hopefully enable worldwide reduction and reutilisation of mine waste.
寻找稳定的关键原材料（CRM）主要供应源会产生大量浪费，而这些浪费不可避免地会在采矿和矿物加工的每个阶段产生。从不可再生自然资源的开采、分离和精炼过程中产生的废物在全球范围内积累，不仅造成了环境危害，也创造了经济可能性。矿山废物管理是一项昂贵且耗时的任务，但又不可避免。矿山尾矿，特别是历史遗留尾矿，可能含有经济上可行的资源，如果条件合适，这些尾矿可以通过废物增值概念重新利用。南非威特沃特斯兰德金矿尾矿就是一个突出的例子，这些尾矿已经在小规模项目中得到了再利用。只有在建立了完善的分类、采样和资源建模框架，对经济、环境、健康和地质冶金等方面进行全面准确的分析后，尾矿的再利用才成为可能。我们对矿山废物增值利用的研究分为两部分：本文是第一部分，重点介绍了矿山废物增值利用框架的基本组成部分，包括对固结矿物尾矿进行特征描述和系统采样框架的开发。矿山废物增值利用框架的开发有望实现全球范围内矿山废物的减少和再利用。
