Assessment of usability of industrial waste in construction of geochemical barriers

One of the major factors of induced transformation of land resources in open pit mineral mining is storage of mine waste on land surface. Persistent conversion of the waste causes geochemical alteration of adjacent landscape. The article describes the studies into migration of some chemical elements (copper, zinc, nickel) in the industrial subsoil with intent to analyze preventability of outflow of heavy metals with infiltration water with subsequent formation of a pollutant areal beyond the limits of industrial infrastructure of operating mines. The usability of economically offcast industrial by-products (fine slug of iron metallurgy, power industry rejects) as constituent elements of artificial geochemical barriers is discussed. Movement and accumulation of heavy metals in the subsoil are analyzed by the method of atomic absorption spectroscopy. Recoverability of ecological value of industrially disturbed ecosystems through development of geochemical barriers is determined and examined. A variant of geochemical barrier construction using process waste is proposed. The revealed nature of of copper and zinc migration in subsoil should be taken into account in novel engineering decision-making on environmental activities during both actual mining and waste storage in industrial infrastructure areas.

Antoninova N. Yu., Sobenin A. V., Shubina L. A. Assessment of usability of industrial waste in construction of geochemical barriers. MIAB. Mining Inf. Anal. Bull. 2020;(12):78-88. [In Russ]. DOI: 10.25018/0236-1493-2020-12-0-78-88.

The study was carried out under the State Contract with the Ural State Mining University, No. 0833-2020-0008: Development and Ecological–Economical Justification of Reclamation Technology for Miningand Metallurgy-Disturbed Land Using Novel Improvers and Fertilizers, jointly with the fellows from the Shared Use Center and using the equipment of the Federal Research Center of Biological Systems and Agrotechnologies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, No. Ross RU.0001.21 PF59, Unified Russian Register for Shared Use Centers; available at: http://www.ckp-rf.ru/ckp/77384.

N.Yu. Antoninova^1,2, Cand. Sci. (Eng.), Head of Laboratory; Assistant Professor, e-mail: natal78@list.ru,
A.V. Sobenin^1,2, Junior Researcher; Junior Researcher,
L.A. Shubina¹, Researcher,
¹ Institute of Mining of Ural Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, 620075, Ekaterinburg, Russia,
² Ural State Mining University, 620144, Ekaterinburg, Russia.

N.Yu. Antoninova, e-mail: natal78@list.ru.

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