FEATURES OF THE RELATIONSHIP OF GERMANIUM CONTENT WITH THE CONCENTRATIONS OF TOXIC ELEMENTS AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION IN THE COAL SEAM С5 OF THE BLAGODATNA MINE

Abstract

Problem Statement and Purpose. The purpose of this publication is to establish the character and level of the statistical relationship between the concentrations of germanium and toxic elements in coal seam c5 of the “Blagodatna” mine and the main features of their distribution for the assessment of possible environmental risks during the selective processing of coal enriched with this element. Coal is the main source of germanium. The study of the content of this element in coal seams acquires considerable importance due to its potential for industrial extraction and application as a valuable accompanying resource. Forecasts by the US Geological Survey point to an increase in global demand for germanium, with production expected to grow nearly 1.5 times by 2030. Data & Methods. The factual basis of the work was the results of data analyzes of 58 analyzes of the elements Ge, Be, F, Hg and As, conducted after 1981 in accredited state laboratories. In some cases, the data was supplemented with the results obtained by the furrow method of sampling from the core and mine workings, which was carried out from 1981 to 2018. At the beginning of the study, primary geochemical data were processed using STATISTICA 13.3 and IBM SPSS Statistics 22 to calculate basic statistical characteristics. Construction of frequency histograms for germanium content and reservoir thickness was also performed, as well as determination of their distribution characteristics. To achieve the research objectives, correlation and regression analyzes were performed using methods available in Micromine, one of the leading professional mining and geological information systems for 3D modeling, statistical data processing and mining planning (license MM5123). Results. The character and level of the statistical relationship between the content of germanium and “toxic elements” in coal seam c5 of the “Blagodatna” mine and the main features of their distribution were established for the assessment of possible environmental risks during the selective processing of coal enriched with this element. It has been proven that the correlation between germanium and all “toxic” elements is inverse and very weak. The existence of genetically different forms of germanium and arsenic, fluorine, mercury and beryllium was revealed. A general feature of the distribution of Ge, As, F, Hg, and Be in the coal seam is noncompliance with normal and lognormal laws and polymodality of the distributions with a shift of the density cores to the left. The diverse probable form of finding the considered impurity elements in general in coal allows to treat the regularities established with the help of regression and correlation analysis only as a kind of trend of dependencies between them.