Environmental Impact And Pollution Prevention Of Mining And Beneficiation Process Of Copper Sulphate Mine Based On Life Cycle Assessment

China is one of the major consumers of copper concentrate and its production capacity continues to expand dramatically.To quantitatively evaluate the environmental impact of mining and beneficiation of copper sulphate mine,life cycle assessment(LCA)was applied by Sima Pro software.Based on a typical copper sulphate mine in China,the Re Ci Pe method with uncertainty information were performed.The main conclusions are as follows.(1)Midpoint analysis revealed that impact from the marine ecotoxicity category was the largest contributor to the total environmental impact,followed by freshwater ecotoxicity,human carcinogenic toxicity,human non-carcinogenic and terrestrial ecotoxicity.Normalization of endpoint results identified human health was the most predominant environmental impact category,followed by ecosystem and resource consumption.(2)For sub-system contribution,the ore mining process had the greatest impact on the overall environment,especially for land occupation and ozone depletion.The mineral processing process mainly led to ionizing radiation and the depletion of water resources.The environmental impact of tailings treatment was mainly reflected in freshwater and marine eutrophication,and pollutant emissions were causes of non-carcinogenic toxicity in humans.(3)Contribution analysis results showed that electricity consumption,cement mortar consumption,blasting process and wastewater discharge were the dominant processes to the main environmental impact categories,and carbon dioxide and copper emissions into the air and zinc and chromium emissions into water were critical pollutants.The sensitivity analysis indicated that controlling on-site emissions and reducing pollution from cement production were the most effective measure to solve the environmental problems caused by the concentrate production process.Besides,the power production process in upper reaches of the mine production greatly affects the environmental impact of the overall mine production by comparing the copper concentrate beneficiation process with the other paper.(4)Finally,the corresponding technical and management measures were proposed to facilitate the development of cleaner metal industry.Based on the life cycle assessment method,the environmental benefits brought by optimizing the blasting method,improving the wastewater treatment process,using new cementitious materials to replace cement in the filling process,and improving domestic power structure were quantitatively analyzed.