Mine tailings have caused serious environmental disasters around the world
Tailings dams are the most used form of mine tailings disposal for mining companies. According to the Global Tailings Review conducted by ICMM, UNEP and PRI, the total amount of global mine tailings is estimated to be more than 200 km₃.
Copper accounts for 46% of all mine tailings globally, followed by gold at 21% and iron at 9%. Countries with large numbers of tailings dams include Australia, Brazil, Canada, and the United States.
High-risk mine tailings dam
These tailings dams, which were stored and left unattended for long periods, have caused serious environmental disasters around the world. A recent notable failure was the 2019 collapse of the Brumadinho tailings dam in Brazil, which killed 270 people. It was considered Brazil’s largest environmental disaster.
In addition, increasing demand and productivity of new energy minerals (such as lithium ore, nickel ore, etc.) to the green low-carbon economy are expected to soar, resulting in the acceleration of mine tailings. Therefore, how to process these “dangerous” mine tailings?
Mineral beneficiation technology is the fundamental solution to the tailings problem
In view of the global tailings disasters in recent years, Noah Thompson, the chief expert of Ftmmachinery, said that “The reason is that the mineral beneficiation technology is too backward, so people cannot reasonably deal with the mine tailings. Therefore, beneficiation technology is the fundamental solution to the tailings problem.
Ftmmachinery has made a big breakthrough in tailings beneficiation technology, mainly including gravity separation, magnetic separation, and flotation separation. These beneficiation processes can effectively extract and recover valuable metal and non-metal elements from tailings to produce steel and iron, construction materials and fertilizers, etc.
Mineral beneficiation technology is the fundamental solution to the tailing problem.
An iron ore processing plant in Indonesia, for example, conducted magnetic separation on iron ore tailings, which helped it to obtain a high-quality iron concentrate with a grade of up to 65.76% and an annual output of 39,200 tons of iron concentrates. Ftmmachinery’s magnetic separation technology helped South Africa successfully solve the tailings problem and also created huge profits.
Conclusion
Tailings are a safety issue, but there also exists a massive reservoir of untapped potential. As an advanced equipment manufacturer in the mining industry, Ftmmachinery is well-positioned to support global customers in turning mine tailings into value-added products.
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