Laboratory Studies to Examine the Effects of Adding Cement to Various Layers of a Surface Paste Tailings Storage

Various difficulties can be encountered in mining activities. One of the most important of these is environmental issues associated with tailings storage. In this context, laboratory-scale research has been carried out to study the effects of adding cement to various layers of a surface paste tailings storage. Different storage designs have been developed to evaluate the SPD method, and variations of paste material have been measured for volumetric water content, oxygen consumption and matric suction. Especially when the middle layers are examined, it has been determined that the volumetric water content is lower than 50% in the reference design; however, it is well above the saturation limit in other designs with cemented layers. In addition, matric suction in the cemented layers reached ~ 86–87 kPa in about a week, whereas a maximum of only ~18 kPa was achieved in the reference layers. The results indicate that the cemented layers act as barriers which may reduce the potential for the development of acid mine drainage.