Pollution Research Paper

ECOLOGICAL AFFECT REDUCTION FOR THE MINES WITH THEUNDERGROUND ELECTROCHEMICAL LEACHING BY CHANGINGCURRENT SUPPLY INTO ORE MASS

YU. V. DMITRAK, YU. I. KONDRATIEV, A.S. VYSKREBENETS, M.V. GEGELASHVILI, S.M.USHAKOVA, K.B. DZERANOVA AND A.I. RAKAEV

Abstract

One of the perspective trends concerning the metals mining technology intensification based onthe underground leaching is the electric current of various types and frequency impact aimed at theleached ore mass state changing being the heterogeneous medium. Simultaneously, the processacceleration can significantly reduce the mines impact on environment due to their stockpilingduration decrease. The methods of the underground electrochemical leaching are described innumerous foreign and Russian scientific works. The unconditional demand of the electric fieldseffective application is the provision of the minimal power consumption during the processimplementation. The power consumption is determined by the electric current supply method intoore mass under treatment. For the underground leaching of the bedrock deposits including thoseof North Ossetia – Alania (Russian Federation) 2 ways of the electric current supply are possible:using the system of co – axis and apposite electrodes placed in the ore mass and using the parallelelectrodes passing through it. The reference sources present the theoretical studies of the electricfields distribution in the leached ore mass depending on the current supply. As for theexperimental research it hasn‘t been carried out. The present article presents the research results onthis problem. The obtained results analysis and the mathematical models allows juxtaposing theefficiency of the current supply methods mentioned above. It has been proved that the currentsupply using the parallel electrodes passing through the ore mass is 20% more efficient than usingthe co – axial and opposite electrodes placed in the ore mass and taking into account other equalconditions it can considerably reduce the mines impact on the environment.