Improvements to mine drainage prediction for CND and REE/Li-bearing mine wastes

全世界采矿业面临的最严重的环境问题之一是尾矿池和废石堆排放的沃茨受到污染。当矿山废物中的硫化物矿物氧化并在排放沃茨中产生污染物时，可能会发生这种污染，导致酸性沃茨中的酸性矿山废水（AMD）或近中性沃茨中的污染中性废水（CND）。潜在有害废物的成功管理和回收在很大程度上取决于使用预测性试验来确定受污染矿井排水的潜在发生。这些测试必须尽可能准确和具有代表性，以确保有效地避免或减轻AMD或CND造成的环境退化。对这些预测性试验的解释需要对所研究材料的成分以及控制矿山废物中污染物释放的不同地球化学和微生物机制有广泛的了解。这对于新兴的稀土元素（REE）和锂（Li）商品以及北极地区的矿山尤为重要。

One of the most serious environmental issues facing the mining industry worldwide is the contamination of drainage waters from tailings ponds and waste rock piles. Such contamination may occur when sulfide minerals in the mine wastes oxidize and generate contaminants in the drainage waters, leading to acid mine drainage (AMD) in acidic waters or to contaminated neutral drainage (CND) in near-neutral waters. The successful management and reclamation of potentially harmful wastes greatly depends on the use of predictive tests to determine the potential occurrence of contaminated mine drainage. These tests must be as accurate and representative as possible to ensure that environmental degradation by AMD or CND can be effectively and efficiently avoided or mitigated. The interpretation of these predictive tests requires an extensive knowledge of the composition of the studied materials, as well as of the different geochemical and microbiological mechanisms controlling the release of contaminants from mine wastes. This is especially critical for the emerging commodities of rare earth elements (REE) and lithium (Li), as well as mines in the Arctic.