Modern mineral formation and thermodynamic modeling of secondary concentration formation processes in sludge waters of a gold concentration plant tailings dump

The article deals with the features of mineral composition of gold-bearing waste from the gold concentration plant. The tailings material consists primarily of a finely dispersed, silty fraction. The structure of the accumulated tailings resembles a layered pie: three horizons of different compositions are distinguished. They were formed during the processing of mixed, and primary (sulfide) ores oxidized in different years. The most common ore minerals in the tailings dump deposits are pyrrhotite, arsenopyrite, pyrite, stibnite, magnetite, and iron hydroxides. In addition, native bismuth, native gold, bismuth and tellurium sulfides, scheelite, and secondary antimony and arsenic minerals (valentinite, tripugiite, and scorodite) are also noted.The composition of the tailings dump’s recirculating water and sludge was studied. Vertical variability in the chemical composition of the tailings storage facility’s recycled waters was established. Sharp variability in water composition is observed at depths of 6–8 meters. To study the direction and rate of dissolution and precipitation of substances in the liquid phase of the tailings dump field experiments were conducted. During the experiments, samples of minerals and man-made materials including rubber, sulfur, mercury amalgam on copper, copper, steel, graphite, native gold in quartz, pyrite and pyrrhotite, arsenopyrite were placed in recycled sludge water at various depths to be extracted in batches with the exposure times of 1, 2, and 3 months. The experiment revealed the etching traces of native gold and a diverse range of newly formed mineral phases including gypsum, iron hydroxides, scorodite, iron and manganese cyanides, copper sulfates and thiocyanates, and others. The Selector-Windows software package was selected for physicochemical modeling of the hypergene processes occurring in the tailings sludge waters. The Selector-Windows software package features a system of built-in thermodynamic databases and a module for generating models of varying complexity and architecture. Performed thermodynamic modeling using the software package allowed the authors to calculate the parameters and direction of technogenic processes occurring in the concentration tailings, determine the elemental and ionic composition, Еh-pH parameters of forming solutions, crystallizing minerals, and their associations as well as to propose a mechanism for secondary gold concentrations in the silt fraction of tailings.

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