Gospodarka Surowcami Mineralnymi - Mineral Resources Management

Polish brines are highly mineralized and can potentially be used for recovery of selected useful elements such as magnesium and potassium. They also contain a number of other elements, including iodine, bromine, boron, and strontium. The results of the examination of the chemical composition of groundwater from the Mesozoic formations (bromine, iodine, lithium, magnesium, and strontium content) of northern and central Poland were analyzed. The basic statistical parameters of the content of these elements (Br, I, Mg) in brines of the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous deposits and the content of lithium and strontium in waters of the entire Mesozoic formations were determined. In order to indicate aquifers that are the most suitable for the recovery of bromine, iodine, lithium, magnesium, and strontium, the relationship between concentrations and the depth of retention and dependencies between selected chemical components of these waters were analyzed. It has been found that the mineralization and concentrations of magnesium, bromine, and iodine increase with the age of aquifers, where these waters occur. Triassic waters are the most prospective for bromine and magnesium recovery among all analyzed aquifers. Furthermore, a relationship between the content of bromine, strontium, and magnesium has also been observed. The increase in the content of individual elements observed for lithium, strontium, and bromine with the increasing depth indicates a potential abundance of waters occurring at significant depths. The presented analysis is an approximation of the content of bromine, iodine, lithium, magnesium, and strontium; however, it may be the basis for further studies on the perspectives of using brines from the Mesozoic deposits of central and northern Poland as a source of chemical raw materials.

Rare earth elements are characterized by the high risk of their shortage resulting from limited resources. From this reason REE constitute a group of elements of special importance for the European Union. The aim of this study was to evaluate ashes from the burning of coal in fluidized bed boilers as an potential source of REY . Twelve samples of fly ash and bottom ash taken from power plants in Poland were analyzed. Tests have shown that despite some differences in chemical composition, the fly ash and bottom ash from fluidized beds could be classified as the calsialic, low acid type. It was found that fly ashes contained more REY than bottom ashes. Among REY , the light elements (LREY ) had the highest share in the total REY content in both fly ashes and bottom ashes. Heavy elements (HREY ) had the lowest content. The normalized curves plotted for fly ash samples within almost all of their entire range were positioned above the reference level and these curves were of the L-M or H-M type. The content of the individual REY in these samples was even twice as high as in UCC . The normalized curves plotted for bottom ash samples were classified as of L, L-M or H type. They were positioned on the reference level or above it. The content of the individual REY in these samples was the same or up to about 4 times lower than in UCC. It was found that the content of critical elements and of excessive elements in fly ash and bottom ash differs, which has an effect on the value of the outlook coefficient Coutl, and which is always higher in the case of fly ash than in the case of bottom ash. Nevertheless, the computed values of the outlook coefficient Coutl allow both fly ash and bottom ash from fluidized beds to be regarded as promising REY raw materials.

This article presents the results of the study of changes in mineral and chemical composition of artificial aggregates consisting of coal shale (a hard coal mining waste) and fluidized ashes. Such an aggregate was used for road construction. After completion of the construction works but before making the road available for public use, significant deformation of the surface in the form of irregular buckling of the asphalt layer occurred. It was excluded that this resulted from mining damage, design errors or performance mistakes, among others. A study of the materials that had been incorporated in the construction layers was undertaken in order to find the component and the mechanism responsible for the buckling of the road surface. A comparison of the mineral and chemical composition of aggregate samples collected from the embankment where the road buckled with the reference sample and samples from places without deformations showed that the bumps in the road embankment consisted of minerals that were not initially present in the aggregate. Wastes produced as a result of high temperatures (slag and power plants ashes, metallurgical wastes) are not as stable in terms of chemical and phase composition in the hypergenic environment. As a result of the processes occurring in the road embankment, anhydrite, which is the primary component of fluidized ashes, was transformed into gypsum and ettringite. As a result of contact with water CaO (present in fluidized ashes) easily changed into calcium hydroxide. As the crystallization of these minerals is expansive, it resulted in the filling of pores and, in extreme cases, in a substantial increase in the volume of the aggregate and, consequently, in the deformation of the road surface.

The separation or beneficiation processes are conducted in many devices and concern many various types of minerals and raw materials. The aim of conducting these processes is always to achieve the best possible results allowing as much of the useful component as possible to be obtained by maintaining reasonable costs of the process. Therefore, it is important to have the possibility to monitor the process effects and to have efficient tools to evaluate the course of it. Generally, the ore’s ability to partition into concentrate and tailings is called its efficiency, upgradeability etc. It can be said that there is no unambiguous measure of upgradeability and there are many factors in use which enable to evaluate it qualitatively. Among them are such commonly known parameters as: recovery, losses, yield, upgrading ratio and many others. They are based on three principal parameters that is the average content of the useful component α, the contents of this component in concentrate β and the contents of this component in tailings ϑ. For a given ore (assuming that α = constant), the multi-product separation results can be treated as points of a trajectory located on the surface of factor w in a three dimensional space (β, ϑ, w). The course of the trajectory depends on the ore petrographic and mineralogical properties preparation for the process. For these reasons, searching for optimal (potential) possibilities of the ore is relative, which is presented in the example of Halbich, Fuerstenau and Madej upgrading curves. Such curves are efficient tools to evaluate the course of a separation (beneficiation) process and each of their types allow the effects to be shown in different perspective. Apart from this, they allow also the optimal feed conditions to conduct a certain process with aim of achieving the expected results to be found. Furthermore, the effect of the ore preparation on the flotation results, on the sum of recoveries of the useful component in concentrate and residual recovery in tailings is presented in the paper. The results indicated that any additional contamination of concentrate should be taken into account during the organization of the flotation process. In this way, the results of fractionated flotation have much valuable information to establish the course of the process.

The optimization of cut-off grades is a fundamental issue for metallic ore deposits. The cut-off grade is used to classify the material as ore or waste. Due to the time value of money, in order to achieve the maximum net present value, an optimum schedules of cut-off grades must be used. The depletion rate is the rate of depletion of a mineral deposit. Variable mining costs are to be applied to the really excavated material, as some of the depletion can be left in-situ. Due to access constraints, some of the blocks that have an average grade less than the determined cut-off grade are left in-situ, some of them are excavated and dumped as waste material. Naturally, variable mining costs should be applied to the blocks of a mineral deposit that are actually excavated. The probability density function of an exponential distribution is used to find the portion of the depletion rate over the production rate that is to be left in-situ. As a result, inverse probability density function is to be applied as the portion of the depletion rate over the production rate that is to be excavated and dumped. The parts of a mineral deposit that are excavated but will be dumped as waste material incur some additional cost of rehabilitation that is to be included in the algorithm of the cut-off grades optimization. This paper describes the general problem of cut-off grades optimization and outlines the further extension of the method including various depletion rates and variable rehabilitation cost. The author introduces the general background of the use of grid search in cut-off grades optimization by using various depletion rates and variable rehabilitation cost. The software developed in this subject is checked by means of a case study.

The average grades of copper mines are dropped by extracting high grade copper ores. Based on the conducted studies in the mine field, the uncertainty of economic calculations and the insufficiency of initial information is observed. This matter has drawn considerations to processing methods which not only extracts low grade copper ores but also decreases adverse environmental impacts. In this research, an optimum cut-off grades modelis developed with the objective function of Net Present Value (NPV) maximization. The costs of the processing methods are also involved in the model. In consequence, an optimization algorithm was presented to calculate and evaluate both the maximum NPV and the optimum cut-off grades. Since the selling price of the final product has always been considered as one of the major risks in the economic calculations and designing of the mines, it was included in the modeling of the price prediction algorithm. The results of the algorithm performance demonstrated that the cost of the lost opportunity and the prediction of the selling price are regarded as two main factors directed into diminishing most of the cut-off grades in the last years of the mines’ production.

Planning in a mining enterprise is a complex and multifaceted action. For this reason, it is necessary to provide its proper organisation and adjust it to the specific conditions of conducting underground mining extraction. The prepared plans must make up a cohesive internal system, unambiguously determining the manner, range and safety requirements of the conducted extraction. In the most general manner, the various types of plans developed by organisational units of mining enterprises can be divided based on the timeframe, type, scope and object of planning. These are strategic plans, tactical plans and subject-based plans. The aim of the article is to present the issue of production planning in a mining enterprise and for the preparation of such a plan, first and foremost, information about, among other things, applicable legal regulations, market conditions and the specificity of a mining enterprise are necessary. Underground extraction of black coal deposits must be conducted while respecting the rules of sustainable development which satisfies current needs, without compromising the ability to satisfy the needs of future generations. Due to the specific nature of mining production, manifested, among other things, by such features as the diversity of conditions for conducting the activity, resulting from the changing geological-mining conditions of the deposit, low flexibility of the production process, associated with the impossibility to conduct alternative production and a very long-lasting investment process, planning the course and magnitude of production in a mining enterprise must proceed with the highest possible diligence. One should take into account a wide range of presented environmental, organisational and technical conditions, deciding about the safety and correctness of the course of the assumed production activities. However, in order to make them economically feasible and produce satisfying results in that regard, it is also necessary to analyse them carefully with respect to financial outcomes

Due to the fact that the landfill deposition of municipal waste with the higher heating value (HHV) than 6 MJ/kg in Poland is prohibited, the application of waste derived fuels for energy production seems to be good option. There is a new combined-heat-and-power (CHP) plant in Zabrze, where varied solid fuels can be combusted. The formation of ashes originating from the combustion of alternative fuels causes a need to find ways for their practical application and demands the knowledge about their properties. Therefore, the present work is devoted to studying the co-combustion of solid recovered fuel (SRF) and coal, its impact on fly ash quality and the potential application of ashes to synthesis zeolites. The major objectives of this paper is to present the detail characteristics of ash generated during this process by using the advanced instrumental techniques (XRF, XRD, SEM, B ET, TGA). The co-combustion were carried out at 0.1 MWth fluidized bed combustor. The amount of SRF in fuel mixture was 1, 5, 10 and 20%, respectively. The focus is on the comparison the ashes depending on the fuel mixture composition. Generally, the ashes characterise high amounts of SiO2, Al2O3 and Fe2O3. It is well observed, that the chemical composition of ashes from co-combustion of blends reflects the amount of SRF addition. Considering the chemical composition of studied ashes, they can be utilize as a zeolites A. The main conclusions is that SRF can be successfully combusted with coal in CFB technology and the fly ashes obtained from coal + SRF fuel mixtures can be used to synthesis zeolites.

The paper discusses the current situation as well as the perspectives for hard coal extraction in India, a global leader both in terms of hard coal output and import volumes. Despite this, over 300 million people lack access to electricity in this country. The main energy resource of India is hard coal and Coal India Limited (CI L) is the world’s biggest company dealing with hard coal extraction. CI L has over 450 mines, employs over 400,000 people, and extracts ca. 430 million tons of hard coal from its 471 mining facilities. India is planning the decisive development of hard coal mining to extract 1.5 billion tons in 2020. Hard coal output in India can be limited due to the occurrence of various threats, including the methane threat. The biggest methane threat occurs in the mines in the Jharia basin, located in East India (the Jharkhand province), where coal methane content is up to ca. 18 m3/Mg. Obtaining methane from coal seams is becoming a necessity. The paper provides guidelines for the classification of particular levels of the methane threat in Indian’s mines. The results of methane sorption tests, carried by the use of the microgravimetric method on coal from the Moonidih mine were presented. Sorption capacities and the diffusion coefficient of methane on coal were determined. The next step was to determine the possibility of degassing the seam, using numerical methods based on the value of coal diffusion coefficient based on Crank’s diffusion model solution. The aim of this study was the evaluation of coal seam demethanization possibilities. The low diffusivity of coal, combined with a minor network of natural cracks in the seam, seems to preclude foregoing demethanization carried out by means of coal seam drilling, without prior slotting.

An analysis of the impact of mining with caving on the surface shows that a type of rock mass strata seems to be one of the critical factors affecting the process. Correlating the values of mining-induced surface deformation with the rock mass structure and the state of its disturbance is of crucial importance. Therefore, if other mining conditions are left unaffected, then those factors exert the key influence on a course and distribution of subsidence and rock mass deformation. A proper description of rock mass type and properties also seems rational for a proper determination of prediction parameters, especially in the case of a multi-seam coal mining, and/or the exploitation carried out at considerable depths. A general outcome of the study discussed in this paper is the development of the methodology and model practices for determining the rock mass type and, as a result, for selecting the optimal values of parameters for predicting the values of surface subsidence in relation to particular geological and mining conditions. The study proves that the type of rock mass may be described by such factors as the influence of overburden strata, the influence of Carboniferous layers, the disturbance of rock mass and the depth of exploitation.