NUST MISIS, Moscow, Russia:

Yushina T. I., Acting Head of Chair, Professor, Candidate of Engineering Sciences, yuti62@mail.ru
Krylov I. O., Associate Professor, Candidate of Engineering Sciences
Valavin V. S., Doctor of Engineering Sciences, Director of the ROMELT Innovative Science and Education Center
Toan V. V., Post-Graduate Student

The article shows a possible way to solve the problem of alternative technology for treatment of solid waste and tailings in terms of the Kamysh-Burun Iron Ore Industrial Plant in the Republic of Crimea. Until 1993 the Plant operated the Kamysh-Burun and Eltigen deposits of ore considered as a rebellious high-phosphorus material. Accordingly, solid waste and tailings are also high-phosphorus and high-sulfuric. To date the Kamysh-Burun Plant is closed. The former production infrastructure is put out of operation, the territory is polluted by toxic waste and represents an unauthorized disposal site in point of fact. The total area operated by the Kamysh-Burun Plant and taken out of service makes 8.3 km2 (without open pit mines). Experts of the Mining College, NUST MISIS, have developed the treatment technology for iron-bearing mining waste. This technology, with addition of charge-adjusting rich high-phosphorus iron-bearing waste material, allows production of technogenic material with iron content higher than 40%, which is a criterion of economically efficient metallurgical Romelt processing and detoxification of waste suitable for industrial use. The target waste is represented by the Kamysh-Burun dump (average iron content 52%) with uncertain reserves and by the Upper Churbash tailings pond (average iron content 30.85–44.3%) with estimated reserves of 24.2 Mt. The top layer of the tailings pond, due to natural atmospheric metamorphism, has low content of iron, phosphorus and sulfur. The bottom layers preserve much phosphorus. All layers of the tailings pond and dump are processible with magnetic separation, and iron content of concentrate, depending on depth of waste layer occurrence, has a wide range from 10 to 64%. Concentrates produced from the low-iron top layer material of the tailings pond contain no toxic admixtures of sulfur or phosphorus. Mixing of the magnetic separation concentrates produced from materials sampled at different industrial infrastructure sites makes it possible to reduce sulfur and phosphorus content of the composite concentrate nearly 2 times. The processing rejects contain 30–40% of iron. Based on the analysis of properties of these rejects, it is concluded that this material is a man-made iron-oxide pigment. Thus, the alternative treatment technology for the Kamysh-Burun waste enables production of:
— composite concentrate suitable for metallurgical treatment by the Romelt process for making cast iron and slug for structural application;
— rejects being a man-made iron-oxide pigment having similar properties with natural yellow earth and saturnine red.

This study was supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia in the framework of the Federal Targeted Program on R&D in Priority Areas of Advancement in the Science and Technology of Russia for 2014–2020 (Unique Identifier RFMEFI57814X0049).

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