Lifting technologies for deep-sea solid mineral extraction facilities: Current situation and prospects

This review article is devoted to the problems of formation of the mining complex at deep-water development of unique solid minerals. The mining and geological conditions of deposits, mineral composition of minerals, economic analysis of the cost of one ton of dry mass of ferromanganese nodules, cobalt-bearing manganese crusts and deep-sea polymetallic sulfides is analyzed. A review of international mining projects for unique solid minerals, an analysis of proposed mining methods, and a typical mining complex based on the analysis were performed. Among the considered variants, the general trends in the formation of the mining machine have been deduced, and the tests of prototypes of promising projects such as Mine-Ro (South Korea), Apollo-II (Netherlands), Patania II (Belgium), etc. have been considered. The variants of auxiliary vessel formation, auxiliary operations performed by it, as well as methods of equipment placement for maintenance and dispatching of machines were considered. It was also noted that the main problem of the complex is the lack of an effective lifting method. In this regard, an analysis of rational methods of lifting was performed. Among the considered variants cyclic, in-line, erlift, two-stage lifting and cyclic-in-line method were singled out. Energy consumption and productivity of each variant are determined, the graph of dependence of specific productivity on mining depth is presented. The cyclic-flow method of solid minerals lifting is analyzed, productivity and limiting factors are estimated.

Serzhan S. L., Malevannyj D. V. Lifting technologies for deep-sea solid mineral extraction facilities: Current situation and prospects. MIAB. Mining Inf. Anal. Bull. 2024; (12-1):107-128. [In Russ]. DOI: 10.25018/0236_1493_2024_121_0_107.

S.L. Serzhan¹, Cand. Sci. (Eng.), Assistant Professor, e-mail: Serzhan_SL@pers.spmi.ru, ORCID ID: 0000-0002-2248-9156,
D.V. Malevannyj¹, Graduate Student, e-mail: mmmono@yandex.ru, ORCID ID: 0000-0002-8597-8002,
¹ Empress Catherine II Saint-Petersburg Mining University, 199106, Saint-Petersburg, Russia.

S.L. Serzhan, e-mail: Serzhan_SL@pers.spmi.ru.

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