QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT OF THE MAN-INDUCED URANIUM IN THE TAIL DISPOSAL OF KARA-BALTA MINING PLANT

摘要

The Hydro-Metallurgical Plant (HMP) of Kara-Balta Mining Plant, Kyrgyzstan, was created in 1950 as a complex of mining and processing enterprises of the atomic branch of the former Soviet Union. A range of different metal processing has taken place at this site over the years, giving rise to large outputs of solid and liquid mineral waste, socalled "tailings". Liquid tailings, consisting of sand, silt, process solutions and water used for transport of this material through the pipeline, are the main waste materials of the Hydrometallurgical plant production (HMP). In the present work, uranium, thorium and radium concentrations together with Ra/U element radios have been determined in the tailing-ponds. These results have been used to calculate the percentage of extracted uranium. The results show a high percent of uranium extraction (up to 97%), and at minimum 92.4%, which is mostly due to the extraction processes utilized in the years 1971 to 1975.