Keywords: mineral resources; Henan mining industry; recycling economy
I. Introduction
Mineral resources are irreversible and non-renewable resources. In recent years, with the sustained and rapid growth of China's economic development, the rapid consumption of resources has led to the reduction of available mineral resources, which has become a bottleneck restricting the sustainable development of the economy. Relevant research shows that by 20 10, only 23 of the 45 main minerals with proven reserves can meet the demand, and it will drop to 6 by 2020. As the support of national economic development, the proven reserves of iron, copper, chromium, platinum, cobalt, nickel, lead and zinc are seriously insufficient. Without new reserves, these limited resources are far from meeting the needs of national economic development in the next 20 years.
How to use these limited resources reasonably and effectively is an important issue related to the sustainable development of China's national economy. However, the current situation of resource utilization is worrying. According to statistics, the comprehensive utilization rate of associated mineral resources in China is less than 20%, and the total recovery rate of mineral resources is only 30%, while the average advanced level abroad is above 50%, with a difference of 30 and 20 percentage points respectively. If the development and utilization of mineral resources continue to follow the traditional extensive development and utilization mode of high consumption, high energy consumption and high pollution, it will inevitably cause greater waste and damage to the existing resources and ecological environment in China and seriously hinder the healthy development of China's national economy. In order to fundamentally solve this deep-seated contradiction, the development of mining industry must bid farewell to the traditional utilization mode as soon as possible and take the road of circular economy to realize the circular economy of mining industry. Mining circular economy can not only fully utilize and effectively protect mineral resources and realize the sustainable development of mining economy, but also help to protect the environment and maintain ecological balance. It is of great significance to promote the transformation of China's economic growth from extensive to intensive, realize the optimal allocation of resources and realize sustainable development, and has high social and ecological benefits.
Since mineral resources are non-renewable resources and their development and utilization are irreversible, how can we realize the circular economy of mining development? As a big province of mineral resources development and utilization, how does Henan run through the concept of circular economy in the process of mineral resources exploration, development and utilization? Based on the thinking of these problems, this paper starts from the basic principle of circular economy and combines the reality of mineral resources in Henan Province to explore the technical ideas of realizing circular economy in mining industry in Henan Province.
Second, circular economy.
"circular economy" was put forward by American economist K. Baldin in the 1960s. It refers to an eco-economic development mode that changes the traditional economic growth mode that relies on resource consumption into resource input, enterprise production, product consumption and resource recycling in the whole process of its abandonment. The economic development of traditional industrial society is a linear economy with one-way material flow, that is, "resources-production-consumption-waste discharge". Economic growth mainly depends on the high-intensity consumption of resources and the destruction of ecological environment. Circular economy is to organize human economic activities into a feedback loop process of "resources-production-consumption-renewable resources", to achieve "low exploitation, high utilization and low emission", to maximize the use of materials and energy entering the production and consumption system, to improve the quality and efficiency of economic operation, and to achieve the goal of coordinating economic development with resource conservation and environmental protection and conforming to the sustainable development strategy.
The core of circular economy is to follow the "3R" principle in the whole process of resource utilization: the principle of reduction, and invest as little resources as possible at the input end of production; Reuse principle, minimize waste discharge, and make waste resource and harmless; Recycling principle, realize the recycling of resource products, and improve the recycling efficiency of resource products as much as possible.
Three. Circular economy in the process of mineral resources exploration and development
According to the "3R" principle of circular economy, the realization of circular economy in mining development needs to start from three aspects: reduction, reuse and recycling. How to reduce, reuse and recycle mineral resources? To realize the circular economy of mining development, we must fully implement the circular economy thought from the exploration, development and post-development stage of mineral resources. That is, from the beginning of mining to the formation of mineral products, the "3R" principle of circular economy has been implemented.
Mining economy is an economy formed in the process of mineral resources exploration and development. The exploration and development of mineral resources is not only a complicated and high-risk investment process, but also a process of consuming resources. The exploration stage is a stage of discovering and understanding mineral resources, which requires a lot of manpower, material resources and capital investment, and is also a stage with great risks. Therefore, we should try to reduce investment. In the process of exploration, multi-objective comprehensive exploration of associated minerals or minerals with close occurrence can avoid repeated exploration in the same area. Therefore, the principle of reduction is of great significance to reduce exploration investment at this stage; The development stage is the main stage of consuming mineral resources. In order to achieve the goal of reduction, we should start with improving the technical level of mining and utilization, improve the mining recovery rate, mineral processing recovery rate and comprehensive utilization rate, make full use of low-grade minerals and associated beneficial components, achieve the goal of mining reduction without reducing the utilization amount, and then realize the circular economy in the development stage.
Fourth, the technical ideas of mining circular economy
(A) reduce the exploration of mineral resources
Mineral resources exploration is all geological exploration work to meet the needs of national construction or mining enterprises, and to find out the distribution of ore bodies, minerals, quality, quantity, mining and utilization conditions, technical and economic evaluation and application prospects. Mineral resources are buried underground, which has the characteristics of scarcity, concealment and complexity. In the process of exploration, geological mapping, geophysical exploration, geochemical exploration, remote sensing geology and other methods are often needed, and technical means such as drilling and pit exploration are applied. It needs surveying, cataloging, sampling, testing, experiment, reserve calculation, technical and economic evaluation and feasibility study, and it needs a lot of manpower, material resources and capital investment to discover a mineral resource point. Therefore, mineral resources exploration is a risky job. It can be seen that it is very important to implement the principle of circular economy in the exploration stage of mineral resources.
In order to follow the principle of reduction, we should first reduce unnecessary investment, and give priority to the exploration of high-scarce minerals that are urgently needed for long-term social and economic development according to the different scarcity degrees of minerals. Secondly, according to the occurrence characteristics of various associated minerals in mineral resources in Henan Province, the principle of circular economy reduction should be followed in the exploration process, and multi-objective three-dimensional exploration should be carried out within the same exploration right. For example, in the distribution of gold rights, there may be other minerals besides gold mines, such as lead-zinc mines, silver mines and molybdenum mines. According to the current exploration right setting policy, the exploration right holder mainly aims at the exploration minerals in the exploration process, which does not conform to the principle of reduction of circular economy. Relevant policies should be formulated to make the exploration of other minerals achieve twice the result with half the effort.
(B) the reduction in the development and utilization of mineral resources
The development and utilization of mineral resources mainly refers to the development and utilization of identified mineral resources. Therefore, maximizing the use of identified mineral resources is actually to reduce resource consumption in the process of development and utilization. The main technical ways to improve the utilization rate of mineral resources are to improve mining technology, metallurgical technology and comprehensive utilization technology.
1. Simplification of mining process
At present, in the process of exploitation and utilization of mineral resources in our province, there is a widespread phenomenon of low recovery rate. Improving the recovery rate of mining is the first prerequisite to reduce resource consumption and improve resource utilization. The way to improve the mining recovery rate is not only to strengthen the government management, but also to improve the mining technology level to solve the scientific way to improve the mining recovery rate.
The development and utilization of coal mines and bauxite play a very important role in the development of mining industry in Henan Province. Improving the mining recovery rate of coal mines and bauxite and improving the utilization degree of coal mines and bauxite reserves are important contents to realize the mining circular economy in Henan Province.
The low recovery rate of bauxite in Henan province has caused great waste in bauxite resource identification. The fundamental reason for the waste of resources is that the deposit is a comprehensive deposit with multiple minerals and grades. Only one grade of ore is needed for mining, and the rest are regarded as surrounding rocks. Even if large enterprises do not mine as long as the Al-Si ratio is greater than 5, the ore below this standard will not be mined, so the recovery rate is only about 40%. If other ores other than bauxite are calculated uniformly, the recovery rate may be below 20%. Therefore, the establishment of comprehensive mines is the fundamental way to improve the recovery rate of bauxite. The key to improve the level of coal mining is technological progress, which is mainly reflected in equipment and technology. Mainly reflected in two aspects: First, large-scale equipment. At present, large-scale hydraulic excavators have been widely used as shovel-loading equipment in the United States, realizing the rapid displacement between working faces. First, technology and equipment are high-tech. With the application of new technologies and equipment such as numerical control calculation, global satellite positioning, high-speed and high-frequency two-way wireless data communication and plane display, mining equipment will be monitored and monitored through remote control center, and all loading, transportation and unloading operations will be automatically or remotely controlled. Unmanned mining systems and intelligent mines have become the development direction of mining industry in developed countries.
2. Reduction of mineral processing and metallurgical process
The mineral resources in Henan province are characterized by less rich minerals and more poor minerals, especially the rapid economic development in recent years, which consumes a large amount of rich mineral resources. Strengthening the research on mineral processing and smelting technology of low-grade mineral resources and popularizing new technologies are the premise to find out the utilization degree of low-grade mineral resources.
Bauxite in Henan province is diaspore type, which has the characteristics of high aluminum, high silicon and low iron. Bauxite resources with Al-Si ratio above 7 are mostly distributed in Sanmenxia City and Luoyang City in western Henan Province, and the rich bauxite resources with Al-Si ratio above 7 in the two cities account for 83% of the whole province. In recent years, the new alumina production projects in Mianchi East Hope, Sanmenxia Cayman, Xin 'an Aluminum Power and Yima to other cities will release production capacity and aggravate the rich bauxite supply situation in our province. Popularizing Bayer process can make use of the advanced and practical technology of low-grade bauxite, which can not only alleviate the supply pressure of bauxite, but also conform to the principle of circular economy. There is a relative shortage of iron ore resources in our province, especially abundant iron ore resources. Anlin area, which occupies an important position in the distribution of rich iron ore resources in our province in history, after years of development and utilization, the remaining iron ore reserves are not much, accounting for only 1.5% of the whole province. The problem of iron ore resources has become a bottleneck restricting the development of iron and steel industry in our province. In view of the present situation that the iron ore resources in Henan Province are mainly low-grade refractory magnetite, it is necessary to introduce advanced mineral processing technology. The new process of magnetic agglomeration invented by Zhengzhou Institute of Mineral Resources has a good beneficiation effect on refractory iron ore. This technology can transform dissociated magnetite into concentrate as soon as possible in the presence of symbiotic bacteria, which provides advanced technology for the application of refractory magnetite in Henan Province. In addition, the magnetic pulley technology of Masteel has a good beneficiation effect on low-grade magnetite; Copper, lead and zinc polymetallic sulfide ores are refractory ores. In recent years, Jiangxi University of Science and Technology has made some achievements in mineral processing of copper, lead and zinc polymetallic sulfide ores. Its scientific research achievement "a new technology of preferential flotation separation of copper, lead and zinc polymetallic sulfide ore by potential regulation" has been applied in Sichuan Huili Zinc Mine Co., Ltd., Nanjing Qixiashan Zinc Yang Mining Co., Ltd. and Anhui Jingxian Zhending Mining Co., Ltd., and remarkable economic benefits have been achieved. The popularization and application of these beneficiation and metallurgy technologies have important technical and economic significance for realizing circular mining and saving resources in Henan Province.
3. Comprehensive mining and comprehensive recovery
Another feature of mineral resources in Henan Province is that there are many associated minerals. Therefore, strengthening the comprehensive development and comprehensive recovery of associated mineral resources is of great significance for saving and comprehensive utilization of mineral resources.
Benxi formation is widely distributed. Benxi formation is a treasure house, which contains all kinds of minerals. From bottom to top, it is an iron-bearing layer, the deep primary zone is pyrite, and the shallow oxidation zone is Shanxi-type iron ore. Above it is clay rock containing potassium. Then there is the main bauxite seam, which can be bauxite, hard clay (composed of diaspore and kaolinite) and soft clay (kaolin) in different areas. Where bauxite is particularly developed, all benxi formation can be converted into bauxite. Above the main seam is a lithium seam, which consists of pure lithium chlorite. Where lithium is abundant, the lower claystone can evolve into lithium chlorite layer, and bauxite and hard clay are completely composed of diaspore and lithium chlorite. In some places, this layer is high-quality kaolin, with an iron content of about 0.3%, which can be processed into kaolin with whiteness greater than 95, comparable to "black sandstone" in Shanxi. Then there is the wood joint soil, which is composed of kaolinite and montmorillonite, with limestone on it, which can be used as flux limestone. In view of the exploitation of mineral resources in benxi formation, the development mode of unified sales or allocation of this series of minerals is established to realize comprehensive exploitation, separate utilization and unified sales, which can greatly improve the mining recovery rate, make full use of resources, reduce the number of "three wastes" and realize "zero emission" in the mining process.
(3) Reuse of mineral resources-utilization of mine solid waste.
1. Utilization of energy and mining solid waste
The solid waste of energy and mineral mines is mainly coal gangue. The comprehensive utilization of coal gangue can not only solve the problem of environmental harm, but also promote the reuse of resources. The comprehensive utilization of coal gangue includes: using coal gangue to generate electricity, producing building materials, recycling beneficial mineral products, manufacturing chemical products, improving soil, producing fertilizers, backfilling (including building backfilling, filling low-lying land and wasteland, filling mined-out areas, and reclamation of coal mine subsidence areas), and road construction. The research on comprehensive utilization of coal gangue has obtained some achievements and patents, which provides good technical support for comprehensive utilization of coal gangue. At present, our province has made some progress in using coal gangue to produce building materials and generate electricity, but the depth and breadth of utilization need to be further improved. Therefore, corresponding policies and measures should be formulated to improve the comprehensive utilization level of coal gangue in our province.
2. Utilization of solid waste from non-coal solid mines
Non-coal solid mineral mine solid waste includes metal mine solid waste and non-metal mine solid waste, which is the corresponding mine waste rock accumulation formed in the mining process of non-coal solid mineral and the corresponding tailings and slag accumulation formed in the smelting process. With the increasing shortage of resources and the gradual progress of recycling technology, the comprehensive utilization of solid waste from non-coal solid minerals has been gradually carried out, and a large number of technical patents and research results have been obtained. However, due to product cost and lack of policy support, these technologies have not been fully promoted.
At present, the comprehensive utilization of solid waste of non-coal solid minerals in our province is mainly the reuse of some tailings, and the comprehensive utilization of mine waste rock is still blank. Therefore, the research work in this field should be strengthened to promote the comprehensive utilization of solid waste in metal mines and non-metal mines in our province.
(d) recovery of mineral products
Mineral resources are non-renewable resources and cannot be recycled, but some mineral products formed by the development of mineral resources can be recycled. According to whether the mining industry can be recycled, it can be further divided into recyclable resources and non-recyclable resources. The former mainly includes metal minerals such as iron, aluminum, copper, lead and zinc, while the latter mainly includes oil, coal and natural gas.
According to whether mineral products can be recycled, different recycling strategies can be adopted to realize mining circular economy. Recyclable resources can enter a recyclable industrial circle, such as iron ore resources, and their products can enter a closed industrial circle after formation: iron-steel-machinery-scrap iron-steel-machinery; Unrecoverable resources can enter a partially recovered industrial circle, such as coal resources, and its main components and associated components can enter a partially recovered industrial circle: coal (hydrocarbons, associated sulfur)-polymer compounds, sulfuric acid-chemical industry-agriculture.
For recoverable mineral resources, the establishment of product flow direction, tracking and recovery system of recoverable mineral resources can ensure the recycling of these mineral resources and improve the utilization rate of resources. This can not only reduce the pressure of resource demand, but also reduce the cost of resource exploration and development, and achieve the purpose of reducing resource consumption from another level. Therefore, strengthening the recycling of mineral resources is also an important way for mining development to take the road of circular economy.
For non-exploitable mineral resources, establish relevant industrial chains, improve the extensibility of resource industries and improve the economic benefits of mining development. According to the actual development of mining industry in Henan Province, we will focus on developing the circular economy of coal chemical industry chain and aluminum industry chain, so that the development of mining economy in Henan Province will enter a new height.