Current Status of Low-Grade Minerals and Mine Wastes Recovery

<p>This reprint is tightly related to minerals engineering. The solution mining (heap leaching in situ leaching etc.) offers an environmentally friendly low-cost and efficient method to extract these minerals especially copper sulfides (chalcopyrite chalcocite etc.) sandstone uranium and sandstone gold deposits. After years of development solution mining has made great progress but it has also encountered some technical bottlenecks. To better understand the current status of low-grade minerals and mine wastes recovery we carefully collected 13 contributions in this Special Issue which are mainly divided into following three aspects:</p><p>· Reaction mechanisms of chemical/bio-leaching-includes the leaching kinetics of copper sulfides assisted leaching (chloride acidic leaching iodide assisted leaching etc.) in situ leaching of uranium and salt deposits etc.</p><p>· Process detection characterization and visualization-includes the detection of reaction products visualization of fluid flow and mass transfer pore strucutre characterization of leaching systems (ore-packed beds etc.) microbial successions of leaching bacteria etc.</p><p>· Recovery recycle and reuse of mine wastes-includes cleaner leaching disposal or production methods (dump leaching etc.) the recovery of mine waste (waste rock tailings etc.) assessment of operations problems etc.</p>