ENAMI's Ventanas smelter heavy metals pollution

• Published in: International journal of surface mining, reclamation and environment reclamation and environment, 1995-01, Vol.9 (2), p.79-82
• Main Authors: de Siegel, E.A., Siegel, P.D.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1389-5265; 1744-5000
• DOI: 10.1080/09208119508964723

ENAMI's Ventanas smelter, located about 50 miles northbound from Chile's Valparaiso port, processes roughly 460000 tpy, smelting a substantial part of CODELCO's copper concentrate production plus other copper, gold and silver concentrates from several Chilean regions. These have very high contents of sulphur and heavy metals, such as Cu, Pb, Zn, Cd and As. The authors studied the pyrometallurgical phase transformations undergone by these concentrates during smelting, characterizing soil samples from the smelters neighbourhood. The later confirmed that the artificially formed heavy metal phases and their associations are very pollutant, having strongly negative environmental consequences. In fact, most of the detected phases are easily and quickly assimilable by all living organisms, thus endangering vegetal and animal growth and human health. The typical physical and chemical properties of these phases have been described and discussed, as well as the methodology followed in this study.