Physicochemical factors affecting the wettability of copper mine blasting dust

Longzhe Jin,Jianguo Liu,Jiaying Wang,Tianyang Wang,Jingzhong Guo

doi:10.1007/s40789-021-00411-x

Longzhe Jin, Jianguo Liu + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40789-021-00411-x

Copy DOI

Abstract

To investigate the factors affecting the wettability of copper mine blasting dust, the primary blasting dust was collected from an open-pit copper mine and separated into hydrophilic blasting dust (HLBD) and hydrophobic blasting dust (HBBD) using water flotation method. The physicochemical properties of HLBD and HBBD were measured and compared with each other. The properties included particle size distributions (PSDs), micromorphologies, pore structures, mineral components and surface organic carbon functional groups. The results show that particle size and pore structure of the blasting dust are the main factors affecting its wettability. Specifically, particle size of HBBD is smaller than that of HLBD, and their respiratory dust (less than 10 µm) accounts for 61.74 vol% and 53.00 vol%, respectively. The pore structure of HBBD is more developed, and the total pore volume of HBBD is 1.66 times larger than that of HLBD. The identical mineral compositions were detected in HLBD and HBBD by X-rays diffraction (XRD); however, the surface organic hydrophobic component of HBBD is slightly larger than that of HLBD, this may be the reason for the poor wettability of HBBD. This study is significant to understand the effects of physicochemical properties of copper mine blasting dust on its wettability.

Highlights

Blasting remains one of the most widely used methods in open-pit mines worldwide (Singh et al 2015; Perez et al 2018), it produces massive emissions of fine particles and toxic gases (Akbari et al 2015; Abdollahisharif et al 2016; Liu et al 2019a; Taylor et al 2014)
To investigate the factors affecting the wettability of copper mine blasting dust, the primary blasting dust was collected from an open-pit copper mine and separated into hydrophilic blasting dust (HLBD) and hydrophobic blasting dust (HBBD) using water flotation method
The identical mineral compositions were detected in HLBD and HBBD by X-rays diffraction (XRD); the surface organic hydrophobic component of HBBD is slightly larger than that of HLBD, this may be the reason for the poor wettability of HBBD

Summary

Introduction

Blasting remains one of the most widely used methods in open-pit mines worldwide (Singh et al 2015; Perez et al 2018), it produces massive emissions of fine particles and toxic gases (Akbari et al 2015; Abdollahisharif et al 2016; Liu et al 2019a; Taylor et al 2014). Those fine particulates can increase the prevalence of pneumoconiosis in mineworkers (Petavratzi et al 2005; Xu et al 2018), and pollute atmospheric environment (Csavina et al 2012). Many new techniques are proposed to suppress mine dust, water spray and chemical dust suppressant are still the most widely utilized methods for dust control in the field (Konorev and Nesterenko 2012; Du and Li 2013; Huang et al 2019a, b; Gonzalez et al 2019)

Objectives

Results

Conclusion