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Minerals
Special Issues
Critical and Precious Metals Recovery from Tailings
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Critical and Precious Metals Recovery from Tailings

A special issue of Minerals (ISSN 2075-163X). This special issue belongs to the section "Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2021) | Viewed by 11333

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Humberto Estay

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Advanced Mining Technology Center (AMTC), Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8380418, Chile
Interests: process engineering; hydrometallurgy; extractive metallurgy; membrane technologies; mine waste valorization
Prof. Dr. Geoffrey S. Simate

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa
Interests: leaching and metal recovery; acid mine drainage; hydrometallurgy; mineral processing; coagulation and flocculation; adsorption; carbon nanotechnology; water treatment and purification; reduce, reuse, and recycle of metal resources
Dr. Germán Velásquez

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Advanced Mining Technology Center (AMTC), University of Chile, Santiago 8380418, Chile
Interests: porphyry Cu-Mo deposits; orogenic gold deposits; mineral characterization; LA-ICP-MS analyses

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Metal resources are more crucial than ever in current global energy transition efforts. Thus, the growing demand for critical metals has increased the price of precious metals, which has promoted interest into processing tailings to recover cobalt, rare earths, nickel, gold, silver, and platinum, among others. Furthermore, environmentally friendly metallurgical processing of these tailings could be an opportunity to remediate these deposits, particularly when they are abandoned or located near to communities, as well as to obtain new sources for metal supplies by applying the circular economy concept to tailings. However, there are still many challenges to overcome for developing a sustainable industry of metal recovery from tailings, such as (i) geochemical and micro-chemical characterization to quantify concentrations of metals and to determine the preferential host mineral for each metal; (ii) metal endowment in the tailings; (iii) the poly-metallic approach for processing and extraction; (iv) concerns about the toxicity of conventional reagents used to extract metals; (v) the large size of processing plants, which limits its use as a mobile system for different deposits; and (vi) the environmental impact of processing and the final residues produced, among others. Overcomingof these challengues could generate a good synchronicity between the economic benefits and the tailings remediation in the mining value chain.

In this regard, the folowing topics are welcome to this Special Issue: (i) novel studies and developments in advanced geo-chemical and micro-chemical characterization of metal-host minerals; (ii) new proposals on the use of alternative reagents to extract critical and precious metals; (iii) novel developments to optimize the current methods of metal extraction, including reagent recovery processes; (iv) studies focused on developing compact and mobile unit operations; (v) examples of and developments in tailings remediation; and (v) studies to support the poly-metallic processing approach and process integration, as well as life cycle assessment focused on tailing processing. Industrial experiences dealing with critical and precious metal recovery from tailings are also welcome.

Dr. Humberto Estay
Dr. Geoffrey S. Simate
Dr. Germán Velásquez
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Minerals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Dr. Humberto Estay
Dr. Geoffrey S. Simate
Dr. Germán Velásquez
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Minerals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • advanced geo-chemical characterization of tailings
  • geo-metallurgy
  • critical metals recovery from tailings
  • precious metals recovery from tailings
  • flotation of tailings
  • mineral processing optimization
  • poly-metallic processing
  • organic reagents for metal leaching
  • alternative reagents to cyanide
  • cyanide recovery processes
  • compact and mobile unit operations
  • tailings remediation
  • life cycle assessment

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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14 pages, 20866 KiB  
Article
Integrated Membrane Process Coupled with Metal Sulfide Precipitation to Recover Zinc and Cyanide
by Gabriel Seriche, Michelle Quilaqueo, Lorena Barros, Minghai Gim-Krumm, Ignacio Cortés, Elizabeth Troncoso, René Ruby-Figueroa and Humberto Estay
Minerals 2022, 12(2), 229; https://doi.org/10.3390/min12020229 - 10 Feb 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2129
Abstract
In gold cyanidation plants, which include a zinc cementation process, there is a progressive increase in zinc content in the solution and a higher cyanide concentration in leaching tailings. Consequently, there are opportunities to: (i) recover zinc and cyanide from these solutions, (ii) [...] Read more.
In gold cyanidation plants, which include a zinc cementation process, there is a progressive increase in zinc content in the solution and a higher cyanide concentration in leaching tailings. Consequently, there are opportunities to: (i) recover zinc and cyanide from these solutions, (ii) generate a saleable ZnS by-product, and (iii) reduce cyanide consumption and cyanide concentration in leaching tailings. Previous studies have proposed the use of the SART (Sulfidization, Acidification, Recycling, and Thickening) process for this purpose; however, this process has disadvantages that must be addressed. This study presents the results of the experimental assessment of an alternative process, the SuCy process, which uses an integrated membrane process. The SuCy process is composed of a metal sulfide precipitation coupled with a membrane filtration stage, a membrane contactor step to recover and concentrate cyanide, and a final neutralization and ultrafiltration stage. The flux obtained for zinc sulfide separation was around 0.01 L/m2s, with cyanide recovery of 95% at 60 min, whereas flux for ultrafiltration was 0.22 L/m2s. A comparison with an experimental study of the SART process at laboratory scale showed that the SuCy process could obtain a higher zinc recovery and can reduce the solid–liquid separation equipment by around five times. Therefore, the SuCy process could be a promising alternative for zinc and cyanide recovery in gold cyanidation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Critical and Precious Metals Recovery from Tailings)
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Review

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27 pages, 4147 KiB  
Review
Metal Sulfide Precipitation: Recent Breakthroughs and Future Outlooks
by Humberto Estay, Lorena Barros and Elizabeth Troncoso
Minerals 2021, 11(12), 1385; https://doi.org/10.3390/min11121385 - 08 Dec 2021
Cited by 28 | Viewed by 8107
Abstract
The interest in metal sulfide precipitation has recently increased given its capacity to efficiently recover several metals and metalloids from different aqueous sources, including wastewaters and hydrometallurgical solutions. This article reviews recent studies about metal sulfide precipitation, considering that the most relevant review [...] Read more.
The interest in metal sulfide precipitation has recently increased given its capacity to efficiently recover several metals and metalloids from different aqueous sources, including wastewaters and hydrometallurgical solutions. This article reviews recent studies about metal sulfide precipitation, considering that the most relevant review article on the topic was published in 2010. Thus, our review emphasizes and focuses on the overall process and its main unit operations. This study follows the flow diagram definition, discussing the recent progress in the application of this process on different aqueous matrices to recover/remove diverse metals/metalloids from them, in addition to kinetic reaction and reactor types, different sulfide sources, precipitate behavior, improvements in solid–liquid separation, and future perspectives. The features included in this review are: operational conditions in terms of pH and Eh to perform a selective recovery of different metals contained in an aqueous source, the aggregation/colloidal behavior of precipitates, new materials for controlling sulfide release, and novel solid–liquid separation processes based on membrane filtration. It is therefore relevant that the direct production of nanoparticles (Nps) from this method could potentially become a future research approach with important implications on unit operations, which could possibly expand to several applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Critical and Precious Metals Recovery from Tailings)
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