National Mineral Waste Databases as an Information Source for Assessing Material Recovery Potential from Mine Waste, Tailings and Metallurgical Waste

Minerals

Bruno Lemiere¹  Teresa Carvalho²  Danielle Sinnett³  Gorazd Žibret⁴  Ana-Maria Mendez⁵  Katalin Szabo⁶  Carlo Cormio⁷  Peter Cleall⁸ 

[1] BRGM, F-45060 Orléans, France;CERENA, DECivil, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal;Centre for Sustainable Planning and Environments, University of the West of England, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK;Department of Mineral Resources and Geochemistry, Geological Survey of Slovenia, Dimičeva ulica 14, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia;Mines and Energy School, Technical University of Madrid, 28004 Madrid, Spain;Mining and Geological Survey of Hungary, Columbus utca 17-23, 1590 Budapest, Hungary;SERENGEO Srl, Via A. Costa 165, 40134 Bologna (BO), Italy;School of Engineering, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3AT, UK;

关键词: tailings;    mining;    resource recovery;    construction materials;    metals;    raw materials;   

DOI  :  10.3390/min10050446

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

We examined the national mine waste registries from seven European countries, created to fulfil the requirements of the “Mine Waste Directive” (2006/21/EC), for their potential use as an initial source of information for the valorisation of specific mine waste deposits for their resource recovery. A set of parameters for mine waste valorisation was defined and divided into three groups: the “basic”, the “metal-centric” and the “material-centric” group. The “basic” group of 19 parameters considers properties of the mine waste deposit, including the location, history, homogeneity and quantity, among others, while the other two groups relate to the two desired material recovery types. The “metal-centric” group of parameters contains the six parameters needed to preliminarily assess the potential to valorise mine waste for metal extraction, while the “material-centric” group contains the nine parameters needed to consider the use of mine waste for the production of different construction materials. National mine waste registries from Slovenia, France, Spain, Italy, UK, Hungary and Portugal were reviewed to determine whether they contain information about each of the parameters. In line with the objectives of the Mine Waste Directive, the national mine waste registries were developed to reduce or prevent environmental damage, and not to enable resource recovery from mine waste. The registries contain most of the information for the parameters in the “basic” group, less information for the parameters in the “metal-centric” group and almost no information to define the parameters in the “material-centric” group. The conclusion is that national mine waste registries could serve only as an initial source of information, and more detailed information must be obtained from other sources. This misses an opportunity to see these sites as a resource, and not only as a potential source of pollution, given the urgent need to find alternative stocks of metals within the EU (European Union).

【 授权许可】

Unknown