Paper Title
Decontamination of Kherzet Youcef Mine Tailings
Abstract
Mining industry has been an important economic activity for many decades. Although this industry brings
significant socio-economic benefits, many negative impacts on the environment result. In the short term, the destruction of the
natural landscape, the fragmentation of ecological environments are major negative impacts while in the long term, it can
cause significant damage by acidification of the environment called acid mine drainage (AMD). The objective of this work is
to conduct a remediation study of the Kherzet Youcef mine tailings and to remove the maximum of sulphides from these
residues so that they are no longer acid generators by applying the non-selective flotation technique. As in any treatment study,
physical, chemical and mineralogical characterization tests are carried out, in order to allow the identification of the
discharges coming from the Kherzet Youcef mine complex dike. For the desulfurization process, we studied the different
parameters affecting the non-selective flotation method. To do this, we varied the concentrations of the chemical reagents used
(collector and activator), as well as the pH and the particle size, in order to determine the optimal conditions allowing to obtain
the best results, and to elaborate a flow sheet of tailings processing of Kherzet Youcef mine. The case of the Kherzet Youcef
mining complex where research conducted by Belkhiri, 2011 and Aitouchak, 2006, on groundwater, soils and sediments of the
wadis of the plain of Ain Azel, confirmed the pollution of the region. We therefore proposed to undertake, as part of this
project, to carry out a study to decontaminate these residues.
Index Terms - Decontamination, Desulfurization process, Kherzet Youcef mine, Mine tailings.