Investigation of chemical suppressants for inactivation of sulfide ores

Abstract

In order to investigate the effective control method of spontaneous combustion in the mining of sulfide ore deposits. This paper presents the testing results of several selected chemicals (water glass, calcium chloride, calcium oxide, magnesium oxide and their composites) as oxidation suppressants for sulfide ores. A weight increment scaling method was used to measure suppressant performance, and this method proved to be accurate, simple and convenient. Based on a large number of expeiments, the test results show that four types of chemical mixtures demonstrate a good performance in reducing the oxidation rate of seven active sulfide ore samples by up to 27% to 100% during an initial 76 d period. The mixtures of water glass mixed with calcium chloride and magnesium oxide mixed with calcium chloride can also act as fire suppressants when used with fire sprinkling systems.

Keywords

sulfide ores / oxidation / chemical suppressants