Drenaje acido de mina

Chapter Number
Basic Concepts in Environmental Geochemistry of Sulfidic Mine-Waste Management
Institute of Applied Economic Geology (GEA), University of Concepcion Chile 1. Introduction
1.1 Mining and the environment As minerals, which are essential to industrial economies, are presently not in short supply, nor do they seem to be for the next several generations, mining and mineral processingcan no longer be presumed to be the best of all possible uses for land; it must compete with compelling demands for alternative uses. Environmental protection and rehabilitation are fast becoming high priorities throughout the world, no longer confined to industrialized countries. Environmental regulations in the developed countries are one of the main reasons for the departure of metal miningcompanies to less developed nations in the last few decades. Low labor costs, exploration potential, and lax or no existing environmental policies, reinforced this process (Hodges, 1995). While industrialized countries started to formulate environmental reports and to implement environmental framework laws in the 1970’s (e.g., USA, Central Europe, Japan), developing countries started this processonly recently in the 1990’s (e.g., Chile, Peru, Korea, Nigeria), as reported in (Jänicke & Weidner, 1997). Increasing world population together with economic growth in emerging countries (e.g. China, India, Brasil etc.) is increasing constantly the demand for metals and minerals in the near future and the associated environmental assessment. Although the world economic crisis stopped this trend forone year, the newly increasing metal prices on the world marked confirm that this trend will go on. 1.2 Mining and extraction processes Once the exploration of an ore body is successful, exploitation begins. The extraction of the ore can take place in an open pit or underground. The ore is then transported to stockpiles or directly to the milling process, where crushing and grinding decrease thegrain size for the benefaction process. The ore grinding must be optimized with respect to the leaching, roast-leaching, or possible benefaction circuits as tabling, flotation, high intensity magnetic separation, heavy media, and others. Liberation of the mineral by the process is governed by the grain size and the mineral complexity of the ore (Ritcey, 1989). Flotation circuits are systems ofcells and auxiliary equipment arranged to yield optimal results (about 80-90 % recovery) from an ore in creating a concentrate following grinding and reagent treatment (Fig. 1). Froth flotation involves the aggregation of air bubbles and mineral particles in an aqueous medium with subsequent levitation of the aggregates to the

Bernhard Dold

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Waste Management

surface and transfer to afroth phase. Whether or not bubble attachment and aggregation occur is determined by the degree to which a particle’s surface is wetted by water. When a solid surface shows little affinity for water, the surface is said to be hydrophobic, and an air bubble will attach to the surface. Coal and molybdenite are the most important naturally hydrophobic minerals. For sulfides except molybdenite, andpossibly stibnite, as well as non-sulfide minerals, the surface condition required for flotation is obtained by specific reagents called collectors. Furthermore, complex ores require a complex combination of conditioning, collecting, and depressing necessary for optimal mineral extraction (Weiss, 1985). After the extraction of the economically interesting minerals by flotation, the residual material(in copper mines typically 95-99% of the treated material) is transported in the form of a suspension to tailings impoundments for final deposition. In practice the recovery of sulfide minerals is less than 100%, and pyrite flotation is generally suppressed by lime addition, so the tailings resulting from sulfide ores contain certain percentage of sulfides, mostly pyrite.

Fig. 1. The ore...