DETERMINATION OF MINERAL PROCESSING INDUCED ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS

5th International Scientific Conference - SGEM2005, www.sgem.org, SGEM2005 Conference Proceedings/ ISBN: 954-918181-2, June 13-17, 2005, 229- 240pp

ABSTRACT

People have always used metals and minerals and products made from or with minerals
in a nearly infinite number of ways. With the increase in population and real per capita
income, the demand for mineral commodities is likely to rise in the future.Mineral Processing
in the mining industry can be defined as the economic recovery of a valuable commodity from
a mineral deposit. Mineral processing operations produce significant amounts of solid and
liquid wastes. As the quality of mineral deposits diminishes, raw materials with low
percentages in valuable minerals must be processed, and so the quantity of solid and liquid
wastes produced are increasing continuously. The handling of these wastes presents severe
environmental problems, which are even more severe in the Eastern European countries of
heavy industry which neglected its effect on the environment. International regulations limit
the quantity of toxic ions permitted in effluent streams in order to improve the quality of life and protect the environment, so wastewaters must be processed for removal of toxic
constituents before their disposition. In this study, mineral processing and environmental
technology will give this paper and discuss the application of new or improved methods both
of mineral processing and the treatment of solid and liquid wastes, and will provide with the
appropriate background to apply mineral processing techniques so as to minimize
environmental degradation.