Zoran Stevanović

Mine Waste Water Management in the Bor Municipality in Order to Protect the Bor River Water

The fact is generally known that all human societies depend on the availability of natural resources (coal, iron, nonferrous metals, precious metals, industrial minerals, etc.) and possi‐ bility of their use [1]. One of three main conclusions of The World Summit on Sustainable Development, held in Johannesburg from 08/26/2002 4/9/2002, was that the concept of sus‐ tainable development underlines that long term efficient development, both for developed and developing countries, has to be based on three favorite topics: environmental protec‐ tion, economic development and social cohesion, both on national and global levels.

Copper Recovery from the Mine Tailings by Combination of Flotation with High-Pressure Oxidative Leaching and Solvent Extraction

The aim of this research was to develop a copper recovery process from mine tailings (0.34%Cu) using flotation followed by high-pressure oxidative leaching (HPOL) and solvent extraction. The results of HPOL using the concentrate of mine tailings obtained by flotation under the optimal conditions of the previous study shown that an efficient copper dissolution of 94.4% was achieved in an H2O media, while the copper concentration of PLS reached to be 2.9 g/L. The solvent extraction of PLS obtained from the optimal HPOL showed that 91.3% copper was recovered in stripped solution under the determined optimum conditions, in which the copper concentration achieved to be 44.8 g/L. Finally, a proposed copper recovery process from the concentrate of mine tailings was developed by combination of HPOL and solvent extraction, while a total copper recovery of 86% was achieved.

Development of copper recovery process from flotation tailings by a combined method of high‒pressure leaching‒solvent extraction

Sulfide copper mineral, typically Chalcopyrite (CuFeS2), is one of the most common minerals for producing metallic copper via the pyrometallurgical process. Generally, flotation tailings are produced as a byproduct of flotation and still consist of un‒recovered copper. In addition, it is expected that more tailings will be produced in the coming years due to the increased exploration of low‒grade copper ores. Therefore, this research aims to develop a copper recovery process from flotation tailings using high‒pressure leaching (HPL) followed by solvent extraction. Over 94.4% copper was dissolved from the sample (CuFeS2 as main copper mineral) by HPL in a H2O media in the presence of pyrite, whereas the iron was co‒dissolved with copper according to an equation given as CCu = 38.40 × CFe. To avoid co‒dissolved iron giving a negative effect on the subsequent process of electrowinning, solvent extraction was conducted on the pregnant leach solution for improving copper concentration. The result showed that 91.3% copper was recovered in a stripped solution and 98.6% iron was removed under the optimal extraction conditions. As a result, 86.2% of copper was recovered from the concentrate of flotation tailings by a proposed HPL‒solvent extraction process.