The three methods of tailings treatment

Treatment of mine tailings is a modern way production with “no tailings, no waste, no pollution" making mine more green.

Tailings treatment processing is divided into three parts: first, spoil reclaiming, second, tailings backfilling, third, tailings making raw materials. The spoil reclaiming is selecting again from tailings; tailings backfilling is the tailings thickening and dewatering, then backfilling the mine goaf; tailings making raw materials is taking tailings dry stacking for tailings to get useful substances which can be treat as raw materials, such as fertilizer, building materials etc..

What working condition do the three methods of tailings treatment need?

Spoil reclaiming
: Generally suitable for small concentrate productivity. The productivity of non-ferrous metals ore dressing plant is only 10-20% with large quantity of tailings (80% ~ 90%).
Advantages: improve the classification efficiency and reduce the waste of tailings. Maximize the recovery of useful components in tailings to reduce the number of tailings avoiding tailings dam break.

Tailings backfilling
: suitable for large mine, the tailings are backfilled to the mine goaf after mining and selecting
Advantages: stabilizing mines, preventing surface subsidence, safety and environmental protection；
In mining, the support mineral pillar can be mined again. Increasing the recovery rate more than 20%, realizing zero discharge

Tailings making raw materials
: applied to mines below 500000 tons. Chemical composition of tailings is very close to the building, chemical fertilizer needed materials, so the tailings can make raw materials, and also improve comprehensive utilization rate of tailings
Advantages: improving comprehensive utilization rate, reducing pollution, saving a lot of lands; in addition, in line with national advocated policy the development of circular economy and reduction of resource consumption.

Comprehensive utilization of tailings owns many advantages, but don’t blindly choose tailings processing method, and take comprehensive consideration according to the mine types and ore types