Kennecott
The Visitor Experience is dedicated to educating the public about the key role Kennecott plays in modern life, safe mining practices, and responsible environmental stewardship. Learn about our history and see first-hand the gigantic scale of our operation, vehicles, and artifacts. Discover how ore gets processed and refined to become 99.99% copper, an …
Transforming Mining Waste to Wealth: A Novel Process for …
Rapid economic development and increased demand for mineral products in China have led to extensive extraction of various ores, resulting in significant environmental challenges associated with the generation of industrial solid waste, particularly iron tailings. Despite being a major mining nation, China faces issues of wasteful practices, …
Copper Recovery and Reduction of Environmental Loading …
Copper Recovery and Reduction of Environmental Loading from Mine Tailings by High-Pressure Leaching and SX-EW Process. by. Labone L. Godirilwe. 1, Kazutoshi Haga. 1,*, Batnasan Altansukh. 1, Yasushi Takasaki. 1, Daizo Ishiyama. 1, …
New approaches for extracting and recovering metals from …
Stankovic et al. (2015) estimated that between 54,000 and 81,000 t of copper is present in the old flotation tailings at the Bor mine. These authors used the acidic ferric iron-rich water in the nearby Lake Robule to leach copper from these …
The Use of Acid Leaching to Recover Metals from Tailings: A …
In 2021, Godirilwe conducted leaching experiments on tailings material from Bor Copper Mine, Serbia, considering both raw tailings and a concentrated tailings variant. Characterization of the samples revealed differences in copper and iron content, with the raw tailings containing 0.24% Cu and 3.51% Fe, while the concentrated …
TENORM: Copper Mining and Production Wastes | US EPA
There is a broad range of TENORM concentrations in copper mining wastes. Mining and extraction of copper by surface or underground methods can concentrate and expose radionuclides in the waste rock and tailings tailingsThe remaining portion of a metal-bearing ore after some or all of a metal, such as uranium, has been extracted.. …
How to handle mine tailings safely and …
Driven by mining volumes, globally generated tailings are estimated to total up to 3.2 billion tons for copper and up to 1.8 billion tons for iron per year. Water conservation and the cost of ...
Socio-Environmental Risks Linked with Mine Tailings …
In the case of copper mine tailings obtained by flotation, it is not mandatory to install geomembrane-type geosynthetic systems on the entire surface of the TSF reservoir. ... Batista É.R., Inda A.V., Curi N., et al. Potentially toxic elements in iron mine tailings: Effects of reducing soil pH on available concentrations of toxic elements ...
Carbon emission curves for iron ore, copper, met coal and …
The copper carbon intensity curve covers Scope 1 and 2 emissions from mine sites, plus freight and downstream processing to copper cathode. The assets covered account for over 86 million tonnes ...
The Use of Acid Leaching to Recover Metals from Tailings: A …
In 2021, Godirilwe conducted leaching experiments on tailings material from Bor Copper Mine, Serbia, considering both raw tailings and a concentrated tailings variant. Characterization of the samples revealed differences in copper and iron …
Underestimated environmental benefits of tailings resource …
Among the tailings produced in China in 2019, iron tailings were 520 million tons, accounting for 40.9%, copper tailings were 325 million tons, accounting for 25.6%, and the rest were rare and precious metal and non-metal tailings (Du et al., 2020). Among all types of tailings, non-ferrous metal tailings have a tremendous pollution potential ...
A critical review on metallurgical recovery of iron from iron ore tailings
Fig. 2 illustrates the iron ore beneficiation process, particularly magnetic separation, resulting in the generation of inevitable tailings. Due to the characteristics of iron ores and the conditions during beneficiation, it is inevitable that approximately 2.5–3 tons of IOTs are generated for every 1 ton of iron ore concentrate produced [7].In 2019, …
Evaluation of heavy metal contamination in copper mine …
An investigation of concentrations of copper, cobalt and cadmium minerals in soils and mango fruits growing on Konkola copper mine tailings dam in Chingola, Zambia. Arch. Sci. 1, 2–5 (2017).
Geotechnical Properties of Mine Tailings
duced coarse iron and fine iron tailings from the Yuhezhai iron mine were about 65–70 and 70 wt%, respectively, and the concen-trations of the coarse copper and fine copper tailings from the Bahuerachi copper mine were about 72 and 60 wt%. Test Methods A series of conventional laboratory experiments were carried out to
Distribution of Zinc, Copper, and Iron in the Tailings Dam of …
Abstract. This paper addresses the mechanism of acid mine drainage generation in tailings from an abandoned mine site and predicts the evolution of zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), and iron (Fe) concentrations.
Process Mineralogy Assisted Iso-Floatability of Copper-Zinc …
Process mineralogy was applied to design the process circuit of magnetite tailings containing copper, lead and zinc from Marcona Iron Ore Mine. ... Therefore, this study provides an available separation of copper-zinc-lead minerals from iron tailings at Marcona Iron Ore Mine based on process mineralogy, thereby giving a prior diagnosis …
Copper Mining and Processing: Processing Copper Ores
Copper processing is a complicated process that begins with mining of the ore (less than 1% copper) and ends with sheets of 99.99% pure copper called cathodes, which will ultimately be made into products for everyday use.The most common types of ore, copper oxide and copper sulfide, undergo two different processes, hydrometallurgy and …
Iron Mountain: An Extraordinary and Extreme Environment
At its peak production, Iron Mountain ranked as the tenth largest copper production site in the world, sixth in the U.S. and first in California. During its operation, from 1879 - 1963, ten different mines throughout the site's 4,400 acres were the source of not just copper, but also silver, iron, gold, zinc and pyrite (iron sulfide).A century of active …
A review of circular economy strategies for mine tailings
The mine tailings are also reported to be reused as fine aggregates in concrete to replace natural sand, e.g. by the use of copper tailings (Thomas et al., 2013) and the use of low-sulphide Pb–Zn tailings (Argane et al., 2016). 5.3.2. Upgrading tailings as secondary raw materials for the ceramic industry
Mine tailings-based geopolymers: Properties, applications …
Among various mine tailings as source material for geopolymer the copper mine tailings (CMTs), iron mine tailings (IMTs), and gold mine tailings (GMTs) are widely researched as is summarized in Table 1.In the geopolymer, they are often mixed with other alumina silicate source materials e.g. fly ash, blast furnace slag, metakaolin, …
Environmental Impact Assessment of Mine Tailings Spill …
The generation of tailings in the world today is immense, since only ounces or pounds of metals are extracted for each ton of ore processed. In 2022, it was estimated that more than 14 billion metric tons of mining tailings were produced per year in the world. Currently, many environmental problems associated with tailings management in …
Ferric minerals and organic matter change arsenic speciation in copper
Arsenic (As) is commonly associated with Cu ore minerals, with the resultant risk that As can be released offsite from mine tailings. We used synchrotron-based fluorescence X-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy (XANES) imaging to provide in situ, laterally-resolved speciation of As within tailings which differed in magnetite content …
The chemistry and toxicity of discharge waters from copper mine …
Copper mining generates large quantities of waste, tailings, and acid outflows causing long-term environmental impacts and potential threats to human health. Valea Şesei is the largest tailing impoundment in Romania, created by flooding the valley (known as Valea Şesei) of the Metalliferous Mountains (a division of the Apuseni …
Recent practices in mine tailings' recycling and reuse
Copper-rich tailings can be turned into lightweight ceramics by sintering iron tailings mixed with fly ash and sewage sludge in paint making. Tailings can be used as additives for soil in road construction in the construction industry. ... Production of eco-friendly bricks from copper mine tailings through geopolymerization. Construction and ...
Geosciences | Free Full-Text | Recycling and Reuse of Mine Tailings…
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 …
New global tailings standard guidelines aim for …
The GTR notes that mine operators must have "zero tolerance for human fatalities and strive for zero harm to people and the environment from the earliest phases of project conception.". It ...
New approaches for extracting and recovering metals from mine tailings
Stankovic et al. (2015) estimated that between 54,000 and 81,000 t of copper is present in the old flotation tailings at the Bor mine. These authors used the acidic ferric iron-rich water in the nearby Lake Robule to leach copper from these tailings, and extracted ∼80% of that present.
Processing Tests, Adjusted Cost Models and the …
The copper grade is substantially higher compared to the average copper grade in tailings from the 1930s of 0.33% and far above the average of SERNAGEOMIN's cadaster of mine tailings (sampling only the first meter), which gives copper grades of 0.27% for inactive and abandoned tailings <10 M t . The investigated TSF was in operation between ...
Take two: why mine tailings are worth another look
Altilium has exclusive rights to reprocess materials from the largest mine tailing site in Eastern Europe, and analysis has confirmed significant residues of copper, iron, aluminium and other metals. Hydrometallurgical processing of the tailings will be carried out at a new solvent extraction pilot plant at Altilium's Technology Centre in ...
Mine tailings-based geopolymers: A comprehensive review
Iron mine tailings-geopolymer composites are produced in a way similar to copper mine tailings-geopolymer composites, with or without the incorporation of alumina-silicate source components.