TITLE:
Gold Sterile Ore Acid Generation Evaluation, San Juan Argentina
AUTHORS:
Vanesa Bazan, Pedro Sarquis, Elena Brandaleze
KEYWORDS:
Acid Drainage, Sulfide Ores, Carbonates Ores
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Environmental Protection,
Vol.5 No.13,
October
23,
2014
ABSTRACT: One of the problems that mining represents in relation to the natural watercourses
is the possible formation of what we call acid mine drainage, which consists in
the emission or formation of water effluents of great acidity, usually rich in
sulfate and with variable contents in heavy metals. The drainage mentioned is
developed from the metal sulfide and sulfate leaching. Researches about the
creation of acid drainage suggest that the formation of these depends directly
on various factors: primary mineralogy (neutralizer sulfides and minerals),
water presence (whether), oxygen diffusion, grain size, microbiological
interaction (bacterium), among others. To study these variables and to relate
them with geological factors, static (Acid-Base Accounting) and dynamic
(Humidity Cell) tests have been developed, among others. The mentioned tests
are applied to a case of a gold deposit situated in the Province of San Juan,
which is currently very argued because of its mining activity due to its
leaching process. In the sterile mineral obtained from the process, kinetics
tests were carried out in humidity cells to simulate the natural oxidation of
the primary mineral samples. In the obtained leaching, pH values closer to
neutrality and a limited solution metal presence were detected, indicating the
neutralization ability due to the carbonates ores presence.