Tailings Submissions

Oscar Vasquez | Solvay Interox

Themes:

• Tailings repurposing that results in a step change in existing tailings volumes
• Step changes in the characterization, extraction and processing of material in the production of tailings volume

Title: Recycling and Repurposing of Tailings

Partners:

• Solvay Peroxides GBU

Offering to sponsors:

The project offers tailings recycling solutions for reuse/repurposing in mineral processing.

Summary:

The project uses Solvay Peroxides technology, such as Caros acid units and hydrogen peroxide dosing, to assist end-users in repurposing and recycling their tailings water for their processes. An example is the destruction of cyanide in an environmentally sustainable manner for gold processing streams. Furthermore, by controlling cyanide levels in recycled water recycled back to flotation plants, the end user can maximise gold recovery for sulphide concentrates. There is the added benefit of being able to treat and remove heavy metals in mine water or tailings water.

The technology has been commercially proven.

Benefit to industry:

Environment

• Removing toxic compounds i.e cyanide and heavy metals (As, Cu, Fe, Mn)
• Water savings through repurposing
• Destruction of cyanide in line with company or Cyanide Code targets.
• No residue which can pose a threat to the environment.

Financial

• Reuse of existing mine water resources removing the requirements for large volumes of new water stream.
• Removing the requirement for additional mine water/tailings water treatments processes which can be CAPEX/OPEX intensive.

Recordings of each submission are available to Members only. Please click on the link below to request access to the recordings and nomination form.

David Williams | The University of Queensland

Themes:

• Avoiding catastrophic failure through monitoring and containment
• Step changes in the characterization, extraction and processing of material in the production of tailings volume

Project title: Avoiding catastrophic TSF failure and reducing stored volume

Project team:

• The University of Queensland
• AECOM
• ATC Williams
• Alfa Laval
• DAS Mining Solutions

Offering to sponsors:

This project will promote alternative tailings management approaches for both existing and new operations that will help to restore that confidence and trust.

The value proposition is to demonstrate the improved safety and cost-effectiveness of optimised conventional tailings management, and the whole-of-life opportunities presented by greater dewatering of tailings in the future.

Project summary:

The project will promote improved tailings management to ensure safety and stability (physical, geochemical and biological) of tailing storage facilities, and to minimise pollution. For conventional thickened tailings disposal, this will involve cycled thin layer tailings deposition, consolidation and desiccation, and tailing storage facility monitoring systems that allow real-time data collection and analysis linked to Trigger Action and Response Plans (TARPs). Dewatering tailings by centrifuging, filtration and/or biochemical treatment allowing dry stacking and/or co-disposal and integrated disposal will also be considered as emerging practices.

The project will develop guidelines for thin layer tailings deposition, consolidation and desiccation, and for the production and management of centrifuged, filtered and/or biochemically treated tailings. Commentary will be made on the available and emerging monitoring sensors and systems that are suitable for use on TSFs, real-time data logging and analysis, and the development and implementation of TARPs. Indicative life-cycle costs of dewatering and monitoring systems will be developed in collaboration with suppliers, and deposition to maximise tailings density and strength to realise post-closure value will be formulated.

Recordings of each submission are available to Members only. Please click on the link below to request access to the recordings and nomination form.

Philipp Buettner | Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology

Themes:

• Tailings repurposing that results in a step change in existing tailings volumes

Project title: recomine – rethinking resources

Research team:

• Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology
• TheiaX
• ERZLABOR GmbH

Offering to sponsors:

The project offers new machine learning based sorting techniques to reduce material in the plant and geometallurgical 3D modelling to determine how the tailings can be repurposed.

Summary:

The proposal contains two different solutions to tailings management. The first involves a new sorting technique using artificial intelligence to separate waste. The sorting process is optimized with machine learning algorithms that ensure same performance with less material.

The second solution provides a realistic geometallurgical 3D modelling technique for tailings.  By using gesostatistical optimized sampling grids, mineralogical and hyperspectral drill core analysis and new interpolation algorithms with respect to the material characteristics, the tailing history and the limits of processing, it is possible to determine the valuable metals and industry minerals, which can be extracted from the tailings.

+ Open to discussions on other industry challenges.

Benefits to industry:

Environmental

• Improved energy balance
• Reduced carbon footprints
• Reduction in the volume of tailings

Economic

• Extension of mine through by increasing available space in the facility
• Optimized plant design (smaller plants – same throughput)

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Recordings of each submission are available to Members only. Please click on the link below to request access to the recordings and nomination form.

Ooi Ean Tat, Thomas Baumgartl | Federation University Australia

Theme: Avoiding catastrophic failure

Project title: Safety assessment of tailings storage facilities

Research team:

• Federation University Australia

Offering to sponsors:

The proposal offers the capability to perform an analysis during the design and operational phases of the tailings storage facility by integrating with concurrent data obtained from continuous monitoring technologies.

Summary:

This proposal involves adapting an in-house software to simulate a tailings storage facility, improving the ability to assess its safety. The software can be used to predict the potential impact of ongoing operational changes to the facility, such as adding additional layers of tailings or elevating the tailings dam wall, changes to the water table and seismic activity as inputs to the computational model. The step change is the time in which results are available; the software does not have to rebuild the numerical mesh each time and can, therefore, deliver fast outcomes.

The technology is currently being applied to landform stability in coal mines and has the potential to be applied to tailings storage facilities of other commodities.

Benefit to industry:

Safety

• Integrating continuous monitoring to assess risk of failure

Environmental

• Continuous monitor and forecasting modelling to prevent failure

Recordings of each submission are available to Members only. Please click on the link below to request access to the recordings and nomination form.

David Williams | The University of Queensland

Theme: Avoiding catastrophic failure of tailings facilities

Project title: Enhancing Resilience of Tailings Facilities

Project team:

• The University of Queensland
• Mining3
• CSIRO Mineral Resources – Tailings flow
• BHP
• Golder Associates
• Red Earth Engineering
• Flow Science Australasia

Offering to sponsors:

The project will place Australian researchers and practitioners at the forefront in providing expertise to mining companies, consultants and software providers, throughout Australia and globally.

Project summary:

The project will improve understanding of the mechanisms underlying potential tailings dam break and the runout of tailings and water, so that this can be avoided or mitigated. A National Tailings Dam Break and Runout Testing Facility will be established at the Univeristy of Queensland Pinjarra Hills site to study the phenomena. This will provide validation and calibration data to develop improved tailings dam break and runout predictive tools, which will be used to enhance tailings facility disaster resilience and preparedness.

Benefit to industry:

Reduced risk

• Reduced uncertainty and increased resilience and reliability

Recordings of each submission are available to Members only. Please click on the link below to request access to the recordings and nomination form.

Thanos Kotsiopoulos | University of Cape Town 

Themes:

• Tailings repurposing that results in a step change in existing tailings volumes
• Step changes in the characterization, extraction and processing of material in the production of tailings volume

Title: Mitigating long-term liabilities of tailing storage facilities through integrated waste management

Research team:

• University of Cape Town
• Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul – Brazil

Offering for sponsors:

The project is a low-cost solution to managing waste, mine closure and preventing acid mine drainage.

Summary:

As water and arable land becomes increasingly scarce with ever-growing global populations, it is critical that we maintain water quality to sustain livelihoods, ecosystems and local economies. For countries that actively extract mineral resources, the negative impacts of mining may be long lasting as mine wastes continue to accumulate in risk-bound storage facilities. In this project we seek to reduce associated risks by recycling and repurposing these materials to prevent the onset of acid rock drainage (ARD) while simultaneously restoring mined areas to its previous arable state. Using sustainable practices, the principle of waste minimization is used together with industrial ecology for the re-purposing of waste materials from conventional mineral processing operations. Combined co-disposal and soil fabrication techniques will be used to develop an integrated prevention and rehabilitation strategy that will result in protocols for cleaner and less wasteful mining operations.

The fabricated soil can support plants with hyperaccumulators initially rendering the soils ready for agriculture and grazing lands.

Benefit to industry:

Economic

• opportunities to decrease or even eliminate the environmental liabilities of mine waste storage facilities
• facilitate the development and implementation of responsible approaches to mine waste management to avoid associated long-term environmental degradation and inter-generational burdens that this places on society
• reduce the significant remediation costs being incurred by both industry and government through the need to treat socio-environmental burdens created through poorly managed mine waste
• offer the potential to derive added value from already mined material.

Recordings of each submission are available to Members only. Please click on the link below to request access to the recordings and nomination form.