Technogenic Deposits in Russia: Precious Metals Stocks and Prospects of Their Recovery

Russia possesses a high potential for resource growth and platinoid reserves, and technogenic waste of complex ore processing can become a considerable part of the process in the near future. It is practical to take into account impounded mill tailings of sulphide copper-nickel ores, old pyrrhotine concentrates (OPC), impounded magnetite concentrates and slag-dust dumps of the mining and metallurgical company “Norilsk Nickel” (MMC NN), as well as technogenic platinum-metal chromite placer deposits of Ural and Aldan. In spite of big volumes, secondary resources are characterized by unstable content of PGM and nonferrous metals. The forms of finding platinum group metals are so that raw material is difficult to be processed by conventional technological schemes. At that production cost of PGM extraction from technogenic deposits sometimes can be lower than when concentration of initial ores and sands, whereas the cost intensive operations connected with mining, crushing, grinding and classification are excluded from the processing chain.