Prof. Chongchong Qi, A/Prof Qiusong Chen and other collaborators announce the idea of “Machine-learning aided design for cemented paste backfill”

NEW YORK, Sept. 10, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Along with other collaborators, especially Prof. Andy Fourie at The University of Western Australia, they proposed the idea of machine-learning aided design for cemented paste backfill (also known as intelligent mining for backfill). A series of papers have been written and published in leading journals like Journal of Cleaner Production, Minerals Engineering, and Powder Technology, to promote this novel idea. Mineral processing tailings (MPT) are inevitable by-products of hard rock mining. They are considered a major source of contaminants to the environment, especially in global arid and semiarid regions. A study has shown that more than 25 billion tons of mineral processing tailings have been produced in China. Poor disposal of the same can be observed in other nations like Australia, Brazil, etc. The right steps must be taken for its disposal as the surface-disposed tailings destroy mining land resources and pose other environmental hazards, which eventually leads to limited cleaner production of the mining industry. Hence, recognized researchers provided a solution. They suggested recycling MPT as cemented paste backfill (CPB), which proved to be an ideal measure for the safe and environmentally friendly disposal of MPT.