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FROM THE OPERATIONAL EXPERIENCE OF THE MINING COMPANIES AND THE ORGANIZATIONS
ATOMREDMETZOLOTO
ArticleName Old low-grade ore treatment on the pilot heap leaching plant
DOI 10.17580/gzh.2017.08.02
ArticleAuthor Yakovlev M. V.
ArticleAuthorData

Priargunsky Industrial Mining and Chemical Union, Krasnokamensk, Russia:

M. V. Yakovlev, Chief Engineer of the Central Research Laboratory, YakovlevMV@ppgho.ru

Abstract

Priargunsky Industrial Mining and Chemical Union is supplied with uranium and uranium–molybdenum ores of Streltsov fields – the largest uranium ore base in Russia. In the course of uranium production and sorting, low-grade ore is separated and dumped as solid waste. This waste constitutes potential danger to the environment. Under the influence of the atmospheric phenomena, uranium can liberate from the dumps in the form of dust, or in the dissolved form, thereby, polluting soil and groundwater. For the period of company performance since 1968, nearly 5 Mt of low-grade ore have been accumulated at the mine infrastructure site, and their processing using the available technologies is economically inexpedient. This article presents a solution to the problem by including low-grade ore of Streltsov ore field (SOF) in the processing with the preliminary separation of low-metal content ore. The analysis of the particle size distribution of the standard quality SOF ore is presented. The main regularities in the distribution of metal and nonmetal material are determined. It is described how low-grade ore is sorted with respect to the size grades. The economic efficiency of this technology introduction has made more than 90 million rubles in 2014–2016. In addition, the issue of mudding (silting) of ore material, during agglomeration of fine articles is discussed. The authors report the lab test data on the selection of cohesive materials as well as the results of percolation leaching of pellets.

keywords Uranium ore, low-grade ore, heap leaching, screening, ore sorting plant, X-ray radiometric separation, agglomeration, reclamation, mudding.
References

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