Factors controlling tungsten mobility in W Cu skarn tailings

Kazamel, B. G.; Jamieson, Heather E.; Leybourne, Matthew I.; Falck, Hendrik

doi:10.1016/j.chemgeo.2023.121487

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…The differences in behaviour of the tailings are remarkable. The Flat River tailings have oxidized and have acidic pore waters, while the impounded tailings show little evidence of oxidation and have near-neutral pore waters (MESH Environmental Inc, 2008;Kazamel et al, 2023). Understanding the differences in behaviour of the Cantung tailings under various storage conditions is crucial for minimizing environmental impacts, and characterization is needed to do this.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geochemical and mineralogical heterogeneity of the Cantung mine tailings: implications for remediation and reprocessing

Surrette,

Dobosz,

Lambiv Dzemua

et al. 2024

Front. Geochem.

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Reprocessing tailings to recover minerals of economic interest and environmental concern can add value to a project and decrease environmental risk, but dealing with heterogeneity within tailings facilities is a challenge. This study investigates the heterogeneity of the Cantung Mine tailings to assess the potential for reprocessing for both value recovery and remediation purposes. The Cantung Mine, Northwest Territories, was a world-class tungsten (W) deposit that was mined periodically from 1962 to 2015. Geochemical analysis of 196 tailings samples shows substantial heterogeneity in the elements of value (tungsten and copper (Cu)) and elements of environmental concern for acid rock drainage (iron (Fe) and sulfur (S)). Tungsten and copper concentrations range from 0.06 to 1.06 wt% W (average 0.32 wt% W) and 0.05 to 0.48 wt% Cu (average 0.23 wt% Cu). Iron and sulfur concentrations range from 8.25 to 34.08 wt% Fe (average 17.14 wt% Fe) and 2.20 to 19.70 wt% S (average 6.7 wt% S). Characterization of 29 samples by scanning electron microscope with automated mineralogy software shows that geochemical heterogeneity corresponds to mineralogical heterogeneity with variability in the concentrations of scheelite (CaWO4), chalcopyrite (CuFeS2) and pyrrhotite (Fe(1-x)S). Liberation analyses indicate that additional grinding would be necessary to recover scheelite, chalcopyrite or pyrrhotite. Pyrrhotite with monoclinic and hexagonal-orthorhombic forms were identified. Overall, the Cantung tailings display considerable heterogeneity, which could lead to difficulties in reprocessing for economic or environmental benefit, but characterizing the heterogeneity allows for systems to be optimized.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geochemical and mineralogical heterogeneity of the Cantung mine tailings: implications for remediation and reprocessing

Surrette,

Dobosz,

Lambiv Dzemua

et al. 2024

Front. Geochem.

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“…W resources have been identified on all continents except Antarctica [1] . Most of the non-producing tungsten mines ceased their operations concurrent with the fall of tungsten prices [39,40] . Processing technology has advanced since the construction of many of the mills, and reprocessing might extract more value from the older tailings [10,11,13] .…”

Section: Global Tungsten Tailings Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The main settings are wolframite quartz veins and stockworks, associated with highly evolved leucogranites and spatially associated with cassiterite, or scheelite skarns, formed by contact metamorphism of a granite in a limestone bedrock, in association with molybdenum porphyries, or as scheelite stratiform-type deposits (regional metamorphism). Tungsten may also be a by-product of molybdenum porphyries [40,62] . Table 2 presents the global geological distribution of major tungsten deposit classes, size, and grades of major tungsten deposit types, respectively, and each will have associated tailings even if they are not described in the literature [10,12,63] .…”

Section: Ore Geology and W Tailings Propertiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tungsten tailings issues and reprocessing solutions

Msumange,

Bru

et al. 2023

Miner Miner Mater

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This paper aims to provide an overview of tungsten (W) tailings properties, detrimental impacts of these tailings, approaches to mitigate these impacts, and a presentation of methods to reprocess them to capture their economic value. Since W is widely used in a variety of industries, it has been extensively mined since the 19th century, and the mining continues to generate significant volumes of tailings. Recent data show that global W production stands at 84 kt per year, and more than 100 Mt of W tailings exist containing over 100 kt of WO3. The tailings contain variable amounts of valuable products and deleterious environmental substances. Some of the contained metals are in great demand for the energy transition. However, these tailings usually contain FeS2/Pyrrhotite and FeAsS minerals, which, when exposed to air and water, can produce acid mine drainage. As such, W tailings may pose environmental and human health risks. Globally, the reprocessing of W tailings presents a potential resource that can be regarded as a paradigm of sustainability and circular economy. Flotation, enhanced gravity separation, and wet high-intensity magnetic separation have been reported to be the common approaches to reprocessing W tailings. However, W processing presents particular difficulties owing to complex material properties, such as fine particle size, surface weathering, similarity in surface properties exhibited by gangue materials (fluorite, apatite, calcite), low concentrations of the elements of interest, and poor mineral liberation.

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Factors controlling tungsten mobility in W Cu skarn tailings

Cited by 2 publications

References 64 publications

Geochemical and mineralogical heterogeneity of the Cantung mine tailings: implications for remediation and reprocessing

Geochemical and mineralogical heterogeneity of the Cantung mine tailings: implications for remediation and reprocessing

Tungsten tailings issues and reprocessing solutions

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