Soil treatment: new applications and challenges for mineral processing technologies

摘要

Soil decontamination may represent a biggerfuture market for mineral processing technologies than mineralbeneficiation as such. The type of contaminants, their origin, themagnitude of the problem and alternative treatment methods inuse today are reviewed. Technologies, originally developed formineral separation, are already established for soil treatment. Ageneral flowsheet for "the mineral dressing way" of soildecontamination is presented with aspects on plant design. Witha comparison of process demands in mineral dressing, areas ofimprovements in the soil washing process are defined, as topromote the role of physical/chemical methods in the giantremediation task of the next decades.