Where is mine waste rock and tailings used?

With the rapid development of the national economy, in recent years, the speed of mining in China has advanced by leaps and bounds, and the amount of waste rock and tailings has also increased. According to incomplete statistics, the current cumulative stock of tailings and waste rock in China has reached more than 70 billion tons. In the face of such a huge stockpile, with green as the development background, the comprehensive utilization of waste rock and tailings in multi-path mining has become an inevitable trend.

At present, what is the application status of these waste rocks and tailings? Where have the relevant companies made breakthroughs? What is the future direction of business development? In order to further understand the application situation, recently our reporter interviewed a number of relevant enterprise leaders, while sorting out the successful experience of enterprises, further discussed the future development direction of comprehensive utilization of mine waste rock and tailings resources.

Multiple companies to explore

In recent years, China has made certain progress in the comprehensive utilization industry of tailings, waste rock, smelting slag, etc., thanks to the guidance of national policies, the innovative guidance of industry experts, and the continuous exploration and practice of enterprises.

Shougang Group Co., Ltd. mining company is a strategic mineral resource base of Shougang, founded in 1959. As a large state-owned mining enterprise, a lot of work has been done in the comprehensive utilization of mine waste rock and tailings in recent years.

"In recent years, the company has seized the country's strong advocacy of the concept of 'green development', the development of circular economy, to promote the implementation of bulk logistics' transit iron 'and other policy opportunities, give full play to the advantages of resources, railway transportation, and actively explore a new model of comprehensive utilization of solid waste resources, the waste earth and stone, tailings and other solid waste generated in the process of mining and selection of iron ore into treasure. Production of construction slag, construction sand and other sand aggregate, coordinated extraction of iron ore." Huang Jiaqiang, general manager of the company, said in an interview with our reporter that the company has carried out the construction of large-scale independent sand and stone building materials production line while optimizing the production process and expanding the production capacity of the main process production line. At present, the annual production capacity of comprehensive utilization of resources exceeds 14 million tons.

Gou Hailong, chairman of Gansu Huajian New Materials Co., LTD., said that in recent years, the company has continuously increased its investment in the comprehensive utilization of resources. It not only promotes the stripped surface soil of the mining surface, the soil included in the ore body and the fine waste rock and slag generated by blasting to build municipal roads, mine roads and reclamation and afforestation. The machine sand and gravel production line is used as a fully enclosed steel structure workshop, the key dust generating points are sealed twice, and equipped with spray equipment and dust removal facilities. The dust is also transported to the powder tank through the pneumatic conveying system, which can be used for pre-mixed mortar, production of free burning bricks and other environmental protection building materials after collection, and the bottom mud is dewatered by the filter press and used for greening and covering the plant. The comprehensive utilization rate of mine resources reached 100%.

Since 2014, Liaoning One Cubic Sand Industry Co., Ltd. has been using the waste rock of Benxi Aotou Mountain Iron Mine as raw materials, constantly optimizing the fine processing of sand and stone, and has stepped out of a road to develop low-carbon green building materials by using mine solid waste. Zhang Shuangcheng, chairman of the company, said that in 2020, the company participated in the "13th Five-Year Plan" national key research and development plan "Industrial solid waste high-content preparation of prefabricated prefabricated component technology" project, or 2020 Liaoning Province major scientific research project "bulk industrial solid waste iron tailings recycling treatment technology and engineering demonstration" leading unit. In the next step, the company will optimize the use of mine waste stone refining sand and sum up a set of replicable and scalable advanced technologies for use by mines and enterprises.

Progress has been made in this phase

On the road of comprehensive utilization of resources of waste rock and tailings in mines, many enterprises have innovation and breakthroughs. Through the comprehensive utilization of waste rock and tailings resources, it not only transforms the former solid waste into high-quality building materials, alleviates the contradiction between supply and demand of sand and stone, but also saves land space and reduces the environmental pollution caused by solid waste discharge.