Searching ways to safely dispose of stale monazite enrichment tailings

Abstract

Majority enterprises for the extraction of uranium and thorium-containing minerals have inherent problem of increased background radiation level at production sites, in particular, tailings dumps. The Baley town of Russian Federation is a typical example of an area with unfavorable radioecological indicators due to the activities of an enterprise for thorium-containing monazite extraction. Based on dosimetry and gamma spectrometry data the paper presents the results of an assessment of the current radiation situation at the enterprise’s tailings dump including the results of field and laboratory cases. The composition of the samples was investigated by granulometric, X-ray fluorescence and X-ray phase analytical methods. Possible ways of tailings processing were considered. It was shown that using simple enrichment methods (sieving, magnetic, and gravitational separation), it is possible not only to reduce the radioactive waste volume by four to five times, but to obtain economic benefits by recovery concentrates of monazite, rutile, and ilmenite.