Paper Title
Decontamination of Kherzet Youcef Mine Tailings

Abstract
Mining industry has been an important economic activity for many decades. Although this industry brings significant socio-economic benefits, many negative impacts on the environment result. In the short term, the destruction of the natural landscape, the fragmentation of ecological environments are major negative impacts while in the long term, it can cause significant damage by acidification of the environment called acid mine drainage (AMD). The objective of this work is to conduct a remediation study of the Kherzet Youcef mine tailings and to remove the maximum of sulphides from these residues so that they are no longer acid generators by applying the non-selective flotation technique. As in any treatment study, physical, chemical and mineralogical characterization tests are carried out, in order to allow the identification of the discharges coming from the Kherzet Youcef mine complex dike. For the desulfurization process, we studied the different parameters affecting the non-selective flotation method. To do this, we varied the concentrations of the chemical reagents used (collector and activator), as well as the pH and the particle size, in order to determine the optimal conditions allowing to obtain the best results, and to elaborate a flow sheet of tailings processing of Kherzet Youcef mine. The case of the Kherzet Youcef mining complex where research conducted by Belkhiri, 2011 and Aitouchak, 2006, on groundwater, soils and sediments of the wadis of the plain of Ain Azel, confirmed the pollution of the region. We therefore proposed to undertake, as part of this project, to carry out a study to decontaminate these residues. Index Terms - Decontamination, Desulfurization process, Kherzet Youcef mine, Mine tailings.