CHARACTERIZATION OF WASTE ROCK FROM THE PHOSPHATE MINING FIELD OF BLED EL HADBA, ALGERIA IN AN ENVIRONMENTAL CONTEXT

Abstract

In the world the demand and consumption of raw materials and minerals is sharply increasing, which has encouraged countries around the world to intensify the mining of different materials and ores such as phosphate. In Algeria, while phosphates are one of the country's most important natural resources; they are ranked third in the world in terms of proven reserves with 2,200,000 tones, mining of this ore is low. The Bled El Hadba deposit is one of the promising Djebel Onk’s deposits with 841 million tons of reserves and which starts mining in 2020. The ore is exploited by the open pit method, therefore a large quantity of waste rock will be evacuated to appropriate surfaces called waste rock dumps, and will consequently induce an increasingly serious destruction of the eco-environment. Intelligent use of solid mine waste to compensate for resource scarcity and protect the environment appears to be a necessity. The main purpose of our research work involves the characterization and environmental management of sand waste rocks from Bled El Hadba phosphate deposit. In this context, we studied a series of runs: Particle size analysis, Cleanliness by the equivalent of sand, and chemical analysis. The results obtained are promising and encouraging for the use of sand waste from the mining of phosphates from Bled El Hadba in the glass and building materials industry.