Chromium has been widely used in many industrial applications. As a result of chromite ore processing, large amounts of chromite ore processing waste (COPW) material that can be classified as hazardous have been produced and released into the environment. Therefore, knowledge of migration behavior and leaching rates of chromium through waste materials and soils are of primary concern for environmentally sound management of land-disposal hazardous wastes. Hask&ouml / k (1998) experimentally studied leaching rates of total Cr and Cr(VI) using laboratory columns packed with chromium COPW material produced by a sodium chromite plant. Based on the experimental results of Hask&ouml / k (1998), present study aim, through mathematical modeling, to understand the dissolution kinetics of chromium during leaching of COPW material and to investigate the effectiveness of intermittent leaching involving a sequence of batch (dissolution) and leaching (mass flushing) operational modes. Obtained results show that a coupled system of two first order differential equations was able to capture the essential characteristics of leaching behavior of COPW material. In addition, the kinetics of chromium dissolution from COPW appeared to be controlled by the difference between aqueous phase concentration and a saturation concentration, by the mass fraction of dissolvable chromium remaining in the solid phase, and finally by the contribution of a constant dissolution rate manifested as a steady-state tailing behavior. As a result of performed simulations it was seen that intermittent leaching could be 65%and 35% more effective than continuous leaching for total Cr and Cr(VI), respectively.

Attractive particle interactions which lead to the hetero-aggregation or 'sliming' of silicate clay gangue and valuable sulphide mineral particles are encountered in a number of hydrometallurgical and flotation processes. Sliming leads to poor recovery of the valuable minerals and high recovery of the clay gangue minerals in flotation concentrates. In the present work, the hetero-aggregation mechanism of hydrophilic mica clay mineral sericite (or muscovite) and hydrophobic chalcocite was investigated by probing the particle interactions and the prevailing interfacial chemistry under dispersion conditions where the individual chalcocite and sericite particles displayed negative zeta potentials. The mitigation/suppression of the hetero-aggregation was examined via the prudent control of dispersion conditions and pulp chemistry (i.e., pH modification and solution speciation control) and the use of two, anionic, polymeric dispersants with different molecular weight and functionality (carboxylate-substituted polyacrylamide, Cyquest 3223 and sulphonate-substituted polymaleic acid, P80 co-polymers) as dispersants. The adsorption behaviour of both polymers onto both minerals under industrially relevant suspension conditions have been quantified in terms of the polymer adsorption density and the adsorbed layer characteristics. These interfacial layer properties which impact on the mineral particles' zeta potentials and interactions, and also underpin the dispersion efficacy of polymers were characterized, using interfacial and solution analytical methods and TM-AFM imaging analysis.