Prevention of the Spread of Dust From Polymetallic Wastes With a Double-Barrier Dust Protection System

Abstract

Waste from the metallurgical industry contains many harmful impurities. If improperly handled and stored in open landfills, small particles of this waste can be picked up by the wind, carried over long distances and harm human health and pollute the environment. Lead production waste is especially dangerous. Such objects must be handled well, and various dust protection systems must be used to prevent the spread of dust. It is not a trivial task in the case of large sizes of such objects. The lead waste pile formed by the polymetallic plant near the city of Shymkent, Republic of Kazakhstan, is a huge conical mountain with a base diameter of 240 m and a height of more than a 20-story skyscraper. This pile is not managed at all. The pile produces a large amount of lead waste dust, which is carried by the wind to the city and surrounding areas. A numerical study of the wind flow around a hazardous pile was carried out. The dust generation area for an unprotected pile reaches 6,318.68 m<sup>2</sup>. This dust generation area affects human health and pollutes the environment near the pile. The barrier dust protection system can significantly reduce the power of harmful dust formation. For the first time, analysis and optimization of a dust protection system consisting of two concentric barriers, where heights are significantly less than the height of the object the system handles, was carried out. The results of the research show that installing this fairly simple system around the lead waste pile reduces the formation of air pollutants by 538 times or 99.81% compared to an unprotected object. In addition, the remaining dust particles that can be picked up by the airflow rise to a height of > 140 m above the Earth's surface when using such a protection system and therefore do not affect human health.

Environmental Impact of Lead Toxicity

“…The content of zinc in the air in the area of the plant for processing non-ferrous metals within a radius of 300 m -0.350 mg/m3; 500 m -0.285 mg/m3; 1000m -0.148 mg/m3; 2000m -0.52 mg/m3; on average, 72 kg of zinc, 3 times more than lead and 12 times more than copper per 1 km2 of the Earth's surface are received annually by atmospheric precipitation. Lead is found mainly in zinc ores, but is also abundant in fossil fuels (Ilyas Ikramov et al, 2023).…”