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By Xie Zhang, Chongyang Zhao, Qingyun Huang, Bing Xie, Xiaopeng Zhen

"Extracting vanadium from vanadium containing hot metal into vanadium slag by BOF is the main vanadium production process in China. In this paper, the influence of Si content in hot metal on the quality of vanadium slag is analyzed. Synthetic vanadium slag with different SiO2 content were melted at 1673 K and then cooled to 303K at the cooling rate of 3?/min. Optical microscopy, SEM, EDS and XRD were used to analyze the mineralogical phases and crystallization behavior of vanadium slag. The results show that vanadium slag mainly contains spinel phase and silicate phase; V is enriched in the spinel phases while Si is concentrated in Fe2SiO4 CaFeSi2O6 and (Fe,Mn)2SiO4 as silicate phase. The melting point of slag increases gradually with the addition of SiO2; whereas viscosity decreases with an addition of 15~19% SiO2 and increases with an addition of 19~27% SiO2.IntroductionVanadium is an important element which is used almost exclusively in ferrous and non-ferrous alloys. The major vanadium products include FeV, V2O5, V2O3, VN and Al-V-Ti alloy. Furthermore, vanadium slags are mostly produced by oxidizing the elements in V-containing hot metal during a duplex refining process. Therefore, the process of removing vanadium from hot metal has its significance on the subsequent process[1].The extraction of vanadium is greatly affected by the mineralogical composition of vanadium slag[2], the distribution of the elements between the spinel and silicate phases and its physic-chemical properties. These characteristics of vanadium slag have been studied in some details. It has been reported that Si mainly exists mainly in the form of silicate which wraps the spinel crystals while small amount of Si stands as phosphorus quartz or diopside[2]. Chen et al.[3, 4] points out, when SiO2 content in vanadium slag increased every 1%, V2O5 decreased 1.48%. Moreover, silicate phases would embarrass the oxidation of V-containing spinels through decreasing the exposing probability[5]. Meanwhile, melting point and viscosity of vanadium slag has been greatly influenced by the SiO2 content. Therefore, this work attempts to analyze the above-mentioned questions systematically."

Jan 1, 2012

By M. J. King, D. A. Van den berg, R. Fukuzawa

"Mercury bearing ore bodies are often treated for the production of copper, lead, zinc, gold, and silver. The mercury deports either to tailings or is collected during various stages of the extraction process. This paper reviews the relationship between various mercury collection processes and the subsequent management of the mercury by-product or waste. It focuses on mercury removal sequestration including cementation, sulphide precipitation, bulk neutralization, and carbon adsorption. Long term mercury management strategies including third-party stabilization, stabilized mercury co-disposal, secure storage, and mercury recycle are also evaluated. INTRODUCTIONMercury is produced in North America as a by-product of non-ferrous metals processing and from recycling of products such as dental amalgam, fluorescent lamps, and thermometers. Its toxicity is recognized to have significant negative impacts on the environment and human health. As a result, many countries are adopting regulations limiting mercury use and its uncontrolled release.The European Union banned mercury exports in 2011 and the United States will do so in 2013. The export bans aim to prevent mercury use in developing countries for activities such as artisanal small scale gold mining. However, by-product mercury production from the non-ferrous metals industries continues.These factors contribute to an oversupply of mercury and the need to find suitable treatment methods for the long term management and storage of mercury and mercury bearing materials."

Jan 1, 2012

By A. M. A. Mohamed, F. H. Samuel, S. Alkahtani

"This article was undertaken to investigate the effect of nickel and zirconium additions on the strength of 354 aluminum cast alloy. The cast alloys were given a solutionizing treatment followed by artificial aging at 190 ºC for 2 hr. High temperature tensile tests were conducted at various temperatures from 25ºC to 300ºC. Optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy were used to study the microstructure of the samples. The results revealed that the intermetallics phases of (Al,Si)3(Zr,Ti), Al3CuNi and Al9NiFe are the main feature in the microstructures of alloys with Zr and Ni additions. The results also indicated that the tensile strength of alloy decreases with an increase in temperature. The combined addition of 0.2 wt% Zr and 0.2 wt% Ni leads to a 30% increase in the tensile properties at 300ºC compared to the base alloy.INTRODUCTIONThe task of improving the mechanical properties in an aluminum alloy at high temperatures should include the knowledge of several factors which are related principally to a decrease in the strength of the metal with increasing temperatures. This behavior is linked to the change or deterioration in the principal metallurgical parameters of the specific cast aluminum alloy during its performance at higher temperatures. Most of applications of Al-Si casting alloys are generally used at temperatures of no more than 230°C (Lee & Chen, 2002). This recommendation is made in view of the fact that, for certain applications such as those required by the automotive industry, these alloys must operate over a wide range of temperatures and stress conditions where temperatures are liable to rise even higher than 230ºC (Robson & Pragnell, 2003).Aluminum-silicon-copper-magnesium alloys such as the 354 alloys show a greater response to heat treatment as a result of the presence of both Mg and Cu. These alloy types display excellent strength and hardness VALUES (although at some sacrifice of ductility and corrosion resistance. These alloys are used for a wide range of applications, such as engine cooling fans, crankcases, high speed rotating parts, structural aerospace components, air compressor pistons, fuel pumps, compressor cases, timing gears, rocker arms, machine parts, and so forth (Cáceres, Svensson, & Taylor, 2003; Rurrxia, Rong-de, Yu-hua, Cherrxi, Xiao-feng, Heng-rong, & H. Zhuang-qi, 2004)."

Jan 1, 2012

?Classification System Efficiency (CSE)? is a simple, powerful concept which can be used to measure and improve ball mill circuit efficiency. This paper describes six plant case studies which demonstrate the use of CSE to diagnose and/or improve grinding circuit performance, with related improvements in circuit efficiency ranging from 3 to 30 percent. The increased effective mill grinding energy is recaptured from energy that was going into over grinding, which can greatly benefit downstream mineral separation. The achievable CSE for given circuit design/operating variables is described, providing every plant metallurgist with the means to determine the potential for increasing their particular grinding circuit?s efficiency through increased CSE.

Jan 1, 2012

By Yuuki Hagio, Hiroyuki Tobo, Michihiro Kuwayama, Yasutaka Ta

"Reduction of CO2 emission is necessary to remedy global warming, however, promising approaches of CO2 separation require a large amount of energy. Molten slag, which is generated as by-product of steel production, has high temperature, but its energy has not been harnessed. To recover the thermal energy from the slag and to apply to separation of CO2 are economical and environmental conscious ways. We propose a new heat recovery system, in which, molten slag is solidified continuously on water-cooled roll and the solidified slag plates are charged into counter-current heat recovery equipment. In laboratory scale experiments, heat recovery ratio of more than 30% was acchived by controlling the thickness of slag.IntroductionThe steel industry in Japan has been working on the projects of ""Environmentally Harmonized Steelmaking Process Technology Development (COURSE50)"". COURSE50 aims at developing technologies to reduce CO2 emissions by approximately 30%. One of the main technologies is to capture and recover CO2 from blast furnace gas using chemical absorbents to regenerate CO2-laden chemical absorbents by separating CO2 from the absorbents. As one of the solutions, JFE Steel Corporation has been developing sensible heat recovery process from steelmaking slag. It is effective to recover and use unutilized high temperature waste heat within a steel plant as the thermal energy required."

Jan 1, 2012

In Canada and other countries, legislation dealing with accurate factual disclosure for mining projects is being expanded to include more metallurgical design information. Grinding characteristics, metallurgical recovery of contained metal and environmental hazards associated with tailings disposal will be part of the Canadian package. This paper will examine only that portion of the plant design standard practice that relates to grinding ? in SAG mills and ball mills that grind ore from as received crushed material to final ground product that is fed to downstream plant recovery processes. Since grinding plants represent a significant portion of the overall concentrator cost, accountability in grinding design should no longer be left to chance, opinion, or hidden proprietary information. This is the 21st century. It is reasonable to expect that a factual basis will be needed so that a Qualified Person (QP) reviewing the grinding mill design can understand it. That will also involve how many and what quality of samples are taken to define the characteristics of the deposit, the accuracy of the tests used to measure ore hardness and the method by which the dimensions and power of the mills are determined. If these criteria are not met, the QP may have no choice but to call attention to the lack of convincing information regarding the grinding mill design for the project. At the same time clients are expected to demand getting the correct design information at a cheaper price, results in a more timely way, and accurate design to the point where the risk of tonnage shortfalls are reduced or eliminated. Tables will be presented to show how this can be done to current standards using existing technologies. At the same time it is acknowledged that current standards are ill-defined and that to achieve consensus among those involved in SAG mill design work, it may require that a consortium funded project be set up to establish what tests and methods for grinding design are suitable to meet the new standards for metallurgical disclosure. By running parallel design methods on several major projects over a period of 5 years, the process of how to design grinding circuits will be better understood because the projects will start at the design stage, include procurement of the mills and will end with a benchmark test on the plant. Selecting the samples and the best schedule for doing test work on core samples submitted and mill design, will be discussed in this paper. The issue of completing the grinding design in time for early procurement decisions is on the critical path for most major projects. Discussions between mining engineers, geologists and process engineers are needed early in the development cycle, at the scoping study level (SS), preliminary engineering assessment (PEA), prefeasibility study (PFS), and at the feasibility study stage (FS), to ensure that proper planning for design sample selection is done. Using adequate sampling and testing methods in a timely way allows early procurement of the grinding mills and minimizes project risk.

Jan 1, 2012

By M. van de Vijfeijken

This paper will first give a short overview of the Copper Mountain project in British Columbia, which just has started commercial operation earlier this year. The grinding process with one 34' x 20' SAG mill and two 24' x 39.5' ball mills will be briefly discussed. All three mills are gear driven by a ring gear, dual pinion and two low speed synchronous motors. Copper Mountain has installed on all three mills, the new state-of-the art dual pinion mill drives. All the inherent operation and maintenance features of this drive technology will be discussed, as well as the advantage of having variable speed control also on the ball mills. The installation and commissioning of the mills and drives at Copper Mountain will be briefly reviewed. Finally the first field measurements on these low speed mill drives will be presented, with the main focus on the low mechanical stress impact of these mill drives on the pinion and ring gear, as well as the accuracy of the load sharing between the two motors.

Jan 1, 2012

By S. J. Schatzel

Coal mine longwall face ventilation is an important component of the overall mine ventilation system. Increases in the production rate due to higher capacity mining equipment tend to increase methane emission rates from the coal face, which must be diluted by the face ventilation with a minimal opportunity for assistance from additional control equipment (i.e., surface boreholes). Increases in panel length, in some mines approaching 6,100 m (20,000 ft), and panel width provide additional challenges to face ventilation designs. Face ventilation can also be affected by communication with the methane-laden gob gas reservoir. Except in a two-entry system, belt air cannot be used to ventilate the face in the US, except in limited cases. This relatively recent requirement has further challenged the mining industry in maintaining adequate longwall face ventilation. To assess the effectiveness of current face ventilation practices, a face monitoring study was combined with a tracer gas test on a longwall face. The study was conducted at a US mine operating in a thick, bituminous coal seam with some self-heating tendencies. Multiple gob gas ventholes were located near the face and produced a small portion of ventilation air in their production flow. Initial results show that emission rates on the longwall face showed a very limited increase in methane concentrations from headgate to tailgate despite the occurrence of methane delays during monitoring. Increases in methane concentrations in the tailgate entry in the vicinity of the longwall face T-junction appeared to be produced primarily by gas flow from the gob, not from increased emissions from the face. Barometric pressure variations were substantial over the course of the study and varied on a diurnal basis, as is typical of many mining operations. Suggestions are forwarded for reducing longwall face methane concentrations.

Jan 1, 2012

By Gabriel S. Esterhuizen

This paper addresses the need for a method to compare the effectiveness of different support systems when designing ground support in coal mines. At present, support design methods include empirical methods based on observations of past performance of installed support systems, analytical methods where the roof is typically simulated by elastic beams and numerical model analysis. The approach presented in this paper estimates the relative stability of a support design through geotechnical evaluation of the rock mass and numerical model analysis of the interaction between the rock mass and the support system. Models are used first to simulate the design performance at the expected rock conditions. The rock strength is then reduced until collapse is indicated in the model. The stability factor is then calculated as the ratio of the expected rock mass strength to the rock mass strength at the onset of collapse, and is similar to the well-known factor of safety used in engineering practice. The stability factor can be used to assist in developing a final support design by comparing the effectiveness of various support systems and the stability of excavations under various geological and loading conditions. Examples of the method?s application in three different geological settings are presented.

Jan 1, 2012

The current mining operations at Newmont Boddington Gold Mine (NBG) commenced in 2008, and commissioning of the processing plant started in the latter half of 2009. Metso Process Technology and Innovation were engaged to assist NBG with commissioning and project ramp-up through the implementation of a comprehensive ?Mine-to-Mill? Process Integration and Optimisation project. This methodology entailed extensive data collection which included drill and blast audits, ore characterisation, comprehensive comminution circuit surveys and review of operational data to assess the limitations within the current mining and processing operations. The results of these investigations have been used to define the operating base line of both the mining and processing areas and identify improvement opportunities. The use of modelling and simulations, utilising actual production data, has allowed for multiple scenarios to be evaluated, minimising the requirement for actual trials and thereby minimising impact on the operation. Improvements implemented to date include: the introduction of routine rock strength measurement for inclusion in block models, modifications to blast design improving ROM fragmentation and downstream comminution process performance, and changes to improve performance of secondary crushing and grinding circuits. Close cooperation between the mine and plant personnel is playing a significant role in overcoming the challenges presented to this operation and further improvements are targeted for the second full year of process plant operation.

Jan 1, 2012

By J. A. Botín

NPV is a static measure of project value which does not discriminate between levels of internal and external risk in project valuation. Due to current investment project?s characteristics, a much more complex model is needed: one that includes the value of flexibility and the different risk levels associated with variables subject to uncertainty (price, costs, exchange rates, grade and tonnage of the deposits, cut off grade, among many others). Few of these variables present any correlation or can be treated uniformly. In this context, Real Option Valuation (ROV) arose more than a decade ago, as a mainly theoretical model with the potential for simultaneous calculation of the risk associated with such variables. This paper reviews the literature regarding the application of Real Options Valuation in mining, noting the prior focus on external risks, and presents a case study where ROV is applied to quantify risk associated to mine planning.

Jan 1, 2012

By S. Gaulocher

Gearless mill drives (GMDs) are the workhorse in the mineral processing industries, more specifically when it comes to grinding crushed ore and cement (in various production stages) in semiautogenous (SAG) mills and large ball mills. They are renowned for their excellent reliability and robustness, long lifespan, and little need for maintenance, and thus yield a low total cost of ownership (TCO). A GMD represents a major investment for a mineral processing plant, and its availability is pivotal for the grinding process. As a basic rule, shut-down periods are to be minimized, but even much more important is that unscheduled shut-downs be avoided. In this contribution, we will present a portfolio of innovative remote diagnostic that consist of the following three key components: 1. Trouble shooting is a form of corrective maintenance and is based on state-of-the art remote access technology, thus enabling highly skilled engineers to access the current sensor readings anytime and from anywhere in order to resolve urgent problems together with the GMD user. 2. Periodic maintenance reports are a form of preventive and predictive maintenance and aim at continuous improvement based on long-term historical records and analyses of multiple measured signals. These detailed reports highlight the health and operational status of the GMD and are periodically (e.g. 3 months) submitted to the customer. 3. Remote condition monitoring spans across preventive and predictive maintenance and is based on continuous recording and automatic analyses of relevant signals using advanced algorithms. The main issue is how to handle the enormous flood of data in an intelligent manner. The results of these analyses are made available to both the GMD user and supplier in real time in order to increase the availability and reliability of the GMD. In this paper, we consider various parts of the GMD, e.g. the cycloconverter, the ring motor, the auxiliary devices (e.g. cooling and lubrication systems), and also phenomena related to the mill itself (e.g. state and quantity of charge). The signal analysis techniques range from simple threshold-based analyses to complex time and frequency domain analyses. We will illustrate the benefits of the proposed approaches with some selected examples.

Jan 1, 2012

In this work, the crystallization of Carnallite from waste brine of Qaidam Basin in Qinghai province was studied based on NaCl-KCl-MgCl2-H2O phase diagram. According to this study, a new crystallization pathway to recycling waste brine was developed. The carnallite salt was formed by using this technology during the waste brine evaporation. The experiment data shows that 5 tons of waste brine was required to form one ton of the carnallite. The average grade of carnallite prepared by using this procedure was about 19.40% of KCl, 16.92% of NaCl, 28.80% of MgCl2, and 0.82% of CaSO4. This study provides an opportunity to utilization of the waste brine.

Jan 1, 2012

By A. Azizi, P. Blatter, A. Bouajila

"Due to the high reactivity of sulfide minerals in alkaline cyanide solutions, some parasitic reactions inflict a heavy gold surface passivation and excess cyanide consumption resulting in a dramatic decrease of the gold leaching rate. Atmospheric pre-oxidation was shown to be an effective tool to enhance gold extraction by preventing a passive film from forming on the surface of gold grains. This work aims to highlight efforts undertaken to determine: (1) how gold cyanidation is limited by passivation; (2) what are the reactions and mechanisms involved during gold cyanidation; and (3) how a better understanding of fundamental issues can be used to design a proper pre-oxidation strategy. INTRODUCTION Precious metals (PM), gold in particular, naturally occur in contact within a wide range of sulfide mineral systems. Hence, one of today’s most challenging R&D tasks consists in accounting for the presence of sulfides on the cyanidation behavior of gold. An important body of knowledge reveals that metal sulfides display a range of reactivities in alkaline cyanide solutions (Marsden & House, 2006). Such reactivities are acknowledged to inflict additional utility costs and loss of profits because they are accompanied with higher consumption of cyanide and/or formation of undesirable by-products that are often detrimental to gold leaching rates. Gold recovery in cyanidation is hampered by a multitude of factors, among others: (1) consumption of excess cyanide as a result of the formation of thiocyanate and dissolution of transition (Cu, Fe, Zn, etc.) metals (Habashi, 1967); (2) gold surface passivation by solid reaction products, e.g., Fe(OH)3 (Guo, Deschenes, Pratt, Fulton & Lastra, 2005), sulfur (Dai & Jeffrey, 2006; Jeffrey & Breuer, 2000;) or oxo and thiooxo (SbO33- SbS33-) salts in alkaline solutions (Guo et al., 2005). Because of their energy structure, most of the sulfide minerals exhibit semiconductor properties (Marsden & House, 2006). Therefore, the contact between constitutive sulfide minerals inside complex sulfurous ores entrains electrochemical phenomena in which sulfide dissolution is a genuine corrosion process (Azizi, Petre, Olsen & Larachi, 2010). For instance, galvanic interactions could be initiated between the various constituents within the ore and could substantially increase or decrease the reactivity of some of the associated minerals."

Jan 1, 2012

By J. Güntner

Most copper/cobalt ores from the Central African Copperbelt contain sulphidic compounds, which are not extractable in direct leaching. Roasting provides the possibility to transfer the valuable components into leachable compounds. In an operation window defined by temperature and off-gas composition it is possible to selectively oxidize iron sulphides to haematite and copper/cobalt sulphides to sulphates. Selective sulphating of the valuable minerals is an important condition for the subsequent leaching stage. The dissolved copper and cobalt are recovered by solvent extraction and electrowinning. This technology has been part of an established process for many decades. The concentrates from recent projects on the Copperbelt have lower sulphur contents, and frequently higher copper contents, than those from older projects. The paper shows the consequences of this trend for plant operation and explains useful counter actions by means of case studies. Autothermal combustion is ensured even at very low sulphur contents. Off-gas treatment has so far been based on SO2 removal through sulphuric acid production. The generated acid is used to make up acid losses in the hydrometallurgical plant section. This well-proven process combination is still the preferred route if the feed sulphur content is high enough; however, some cases may require different off-gas cleaning concepts without compromising on clean air quality. Roasting in a fluid-bed furnace remains the core of the technology. Fluid-bed roasters are easy to operate and provide an excellent control of the calcine quality. Different feeding and heat-recovery systems are used to provide a tailor-made solution for each project. Outotec built it first sulphatizing roaster in Zambia about 30 years ago. At that time, the roasting of metal sulphides was already one of the main technologies in the company. Outotec has developed roasting solutions for copper, gold, zinc, lead, molybdenum, and pyrite ores. The continuously expanded and upgraded research facilities provide an excellent basis for developing sustainable, energy-efficient, and economic solutions for copper and cobalt production in Africa.

Jan 1, 2012

Copper cyanide is a common component of cyanide-treatable precious metal ores. The copper concentration in production heaps can be predicted from laboratory column tests, but the exact correlation is not necessarily intuitive. Generally, heap leach operators like to keep copper concentrations in solution below 300?500 ppm and may note problems with gold recovery and cyanide consumption when copper concentrations exceed this amount. There are several methods of copper removal from cyanide solutions including ion exchange; direct electrowinning; acidification, volatilization, and recovery (AVR); and sulphide precipitation such as the sulphidization, acidification, recycling, and thickening (SART) process. SART involves acidification with addition of soluble sulphide, separation of the resulting copper sulphide precipitate, and addition of lime to re-establish alkalinity prior to returning the solution to the leaching process, recovering both copper and cyanide as valuable products. In principle SART is very simple. Yet some SART plants that have been built may have been unnecessarily complex. This paper explores the basics of SART and makes the case for a simple plant design as applied to the heap leaching circuit.

Jan 1, 2012

By Wilson Acchar, Fernando Barcelos, Luis Carlos Pereira

"Porous ceramics have been extensively investigated as structural materials for flow of fluids in many applications, such as filters for molten metals, water purification and hot gases, thermal protection systems and heat exchangers. This class of material must have two special features: high permeability and mechanical strength. However, these parameters are influenced in different ways by the processing method and the consequent cellular structure. In this work two different types of commercial ceramic filter materials are investigated. Characterization included the evaluation of the strength values as well as the permeability behavior and microstructural analyzes of the surface fracture. The results indicate that the strength values are strong dependent on the filament defects.IntroductionCeramic materials with a cellular structure have been extensively investigated as structural materials for flow of fluids applications [1-3]. Microstructural aspects such as morphology, size of the cell and the degree of interconnectedness are mainly parameters that influence the properties of these porous materials [4-6]. The most used industrial process to produce cellular ceramics for filter application is the polymeric sponge replication method. This technique consists in dipping the polymer foam into slurry containing an appropriate binder and the necessary ceramic materials, followed by a heating treatment [2,5].Mechanical properties of cellular ceramics depend basically on cell size, degree of interconnectedness and density [1,2,5,8,9]. Materials used as filters required a good strength and also permeability values. These properties are inversely proportional to each other. Higher porosity increases permeability values but decreases the strength values [1,2,5]. The objective of this work is to study the strength resistance of a commercial porous ceramic material (10, 20 and 30 ppi) based on silicon carbide."

Jan 1, 2012

By D. Haraguchi, S. Izawa, C. Tokoro, S. Owada

"Arsenic is widely known as a toxic element for humans, animals and plants. Because of more stringent wastewater standards not only in Japan but also around the world, research for appropriate and efficient treatment method for arsenic is becoming increasingly important. Coprecipitation or adsorption process using ferrihydrite is widely implemented for dilute As(V) removal from wastewater. In this study, the sorption mechanism of dilute As(V) with ferrihydrite in coprecipitation or adsorption process was investigated. To accomplish this, we conducted batch experiments of coprecipitation or adsorption and compared these results for sorption isotherm and zeta potential. These experimental results showed that sorption mechanism in coprecipitation process depends on the initial As/Fe molar ratio; simple twodimensional adsorption onto the surface of ferrihydrite when the initial As/Fe molar ratio was < 0.4, and some three-dimensional uptake with ferrihydrite when it was = 0.4. We also evaluated the sorption mechanim by analysis of X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (XAFS). XRD or XAFS spectra showed that surface precipitation of amorphous ferric arsenate was formed when the initial as/Fe molar ratio was = 0.4, beyond the thermodynamic bulk precipitation range for ferric arsenate.INTRODUCTIONArsenic is toxic to animals, including humans, and long-term exposure to arsenic via drinkingwater causes cancer of the skin, lungs, urinary bladder, and kidneys, as well as other effects on the skin such as changes in pigmentation and thickening (Ghosha et al., 2008). Elevated levels of arsenic are often present in the environment as a result of the weathering and dissolution of minerals as well as in response to numerous anthropogenic sources including the discharge of mine wastes, coal fly ash and the use of pesticides that contain arsenic (Nriagu, 1994; Singh et al., 2007). Indeed, the potential for arsenic exposure affects many people, as evidenced by several million people in Bangladesh and India being at risk of exposure via drinking water obtained from contaminated groundwater sources (Ahmed, 2001).Acid mine drainage (AMD) containing arsenic is a global environmental problem (Dold, 2008; Liang and Thomson, 2008) that also affects Japan, which has many abandoned or closed mines that have been generating AMD for the last few decades (Masuda et al., 2008). Several such facilities in Japan produce AMD containing dilute concentrations of arsenic that exceed Japanese effluent standards (0.1 mg/dm3) (METI, 2006). For example, AMD from the abandoned Horobetsu sulfur mine, the largest AMD source in Japan, contains approximately 10 mg/dm3 arsenic."

Jan 1, 2012

By B. Dubé, R. Friedman, J. Oliver, R. Aubertin, M. Burson, G. Panneton, M. Hamilton, J. Ayer

"Abstract — The Detour Lake gold deposit is located within the northwestern limit of the Archean Abitibi Subprovince of the Superior Province. Mineralized zones are hosted by a sequence of pillowed and massive flows, hyaloclastite units, and altered ultramafic rocks, and are commonly oriented parallel to a series of high-strain zones that are co-planar to the regional-scale Sunday Lake Deformation Zone. Early in its kinematic history, the Sunday Lake Deformation Zone placed older (2.72 Ga) volcanic rocks of the Detour Lake Formation over younger (2.70 Ga) sedimentary rocks of the Caopatina assemblage. Gold mineralization is also parallel to the position of a laterally persistent siliceous rock unit, the 2.725 Ga ‘Chert Marker Horizon.’ The Chert Marker Horizon coincides with the boundary between the mafic-dominated upper Detour Lake Formation and the ultramafic-dominated lower Detour Lake Formation. Stratigraphic and geochronological data suggest that the Chert Marker Horizon is a deformed felsic volcaniclastic unit. At a cut-off of 0.6 g/t Au, the Detour Lake deposit contains 17.26 million ounces of Au within 445.9 million tonnes of rock grading 1.20 g/t Au. Gold occurs in shear-hosted and extensional vein arrays within rocks of the upper and lower Detour Lake Formation and within the Chert Marker Horizon. The Detour Lake deposit has many of the characteristics of a greenstone-hosted, quartz-carbonate vein deposit; its very large size may be attributed to large-scale rheological controls resulting in the formation of dilatant sites in permissive rock units. © 2012 Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum. All rights reserved."

Jan 1, 2012

By Mansoor Barati, Leili Tafaghodi Khajavi

"This study involves employing solvent refining as a purification process in which silicon recrystallization takes place from an iron-silicon melt. It is believed that iron will act as the impurity “getter” and purified silicon crystals will grow from the alloy melt, while the impurities are segregated to the liquid alloy. Phosphorous is a problematic impurity to remove since its segregation coefficient in pure silicon is relatively large. To assess the feasibility and efficiency of phosphorous removal through solvent refining, it is critical to study its equilibrium distribution between solid Si and the Fe–Si alloy phase.The distribution of phosphorous between solid silicon and iron-silicon melt at 1210-1310 °C was measured to evaluate the impurity removal potential of each alloy. Interaction parameter between phosphorous and iron was calculated by varying the concentration of phosphorous in silicon.IntroductionAmong various semiconductor materials for manufacture of solar cells, silicon accounts for over 90 percent of today's PV materials [1, 2].The major challenge in producing solar silicon that operates efficiently is to meet purity level requirement through a cost efficient route. Silicon solar cells can play a significant role in answering the world's need for energy if cost reductions can be achieved through manufacturing process. Considerable effort has been made to replace the expensive, complex vapor-phase purification by a simpler and less costly process. One of the refining approaches that have attracted wide research interests is producing low-cost solar grade silicon by purification of metallurgical grade silicon. Since metallurgical processes are selective in removing impurities, a combination of various purification processes can be used to reduce the impurity level in silicon. Considering different thermodynamic characteristics of impurities, each refining step is responsible for lowering specific impurities."

Jan 1, 2012