Justification of adaptive process flow diagram for low-grade mineral resource preparation for heap leaching

The increased consumption of metals at the simultaneous decrease of the content of useful components in ore predetermines an incremental increase in the volume and rate of mining operations. Such work also produces much low-grade ore which may contain metals. This study analyzes process flow diagrams meant for processing such low-grade mineral resources. The experimental investigation of copper content in large broken fragments of lowgrade ore proved potentiality of processing payable fine fraction rich with useful components. The authors propose a low-waste, resource-saving and adaptive process flow diagram for open pit mining of large ore deposits, with coarse-batch grading and with extraction of payable fine fraction from low-grade mineral raw material. Rock haulage from an open pit is carried out by intermodal transport, and extraction of payable fine fraction is implemented at an improved rehandling point equipped with a jigging screen during reloading of conditionally low-grade ore from dump trucks to conveyors. The produced payable fine fraction is processed by heap leaching with pre-treatment by solutions of high-active oxidizers during heap leach pile formation. Removal of metal-bearing fines from low-grade ore can reduce amount of metal dumping with waste ore approximately by a quarter, and also can mitigate the adverse environmental impact of mining.

Cheban A. Yu., Konareva T. G., Litvinova N. M., Qin Y. F. Justification of adaptive process flow diagram for low-grade mineral resource preparation for heap leaching. MIAB. Mining Inf. Anal. Bull. 2025;(4):34-46. [In Russ]. DOI: 10.25018/0236_1493_2025_4_0_34.

The study was carried out using resources of the Share-Use Center for Scientific Evidence Processing and Storage, supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, Project No. 075-15-2021-663.

A.Yu. Cheban¹, Cand. Sci. (Eng.), Leading Researcher, e-mail: chebanay@mail.ru, ORCID ID: 0000-0003-2707-626X,
T.G. Konareva¹, Researcher, e-mail: konar_tat@mail.ru, ORCID ID: 0000-0001-9889-3721,
N.M. Litvinova¹, Cand. Sci. (Eng.), Leading Researcher, e-mail: nauka22@yandex.ru, ORCID ID: 0000-0002-8199-1605,
Y.F. Qin, Graduate Student, Heilongjiang University of Science and Technology, Harbin, China, e-mail: qyf18852935131@126.com,
¹ Mining Institute of Far East Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 680000, Khabarovsk, Russia.

A.Yu. Cheban, e-mail: chebanay@mail.ru.

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