Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

Tailings are an unavoidable byproduct of mining processes to extract valuable minerals which are necessary for Canada's transition to more sustainable energy technologies. Canada's mining sector produces more than 650 million tonnes of tailings each year across 200 operations, incurring a staggering cost of over $10 billion for their ongoing management. Typically, these tailings are stored in specialized structures known as tailings storage facilities (TSF); there are significant environmental and safety implications if these facilities fail to contain the tailings. These issues are compounded by climate change, especially in areas where TSFs have been built on permafrost. Currently there is a lack of efficient tools for quickly assessing the composition of tailings, which is essential for the safe operation and monitoring of TSFs. In the northern regions of Canada, these tailings are exposed to freezing and thawing cycles, where a portion of the water remains in a liquid state during sub-freezing temperatures. The proposed state-of-the-art Nuclear Magnetic Resonance System (NMRS) serves a crucial role in identifying the composition of tailings and determining unfrozen water and ice content in frozen tailings and soils. Its primary objective is to expedite the characterization of physical properties in tailings and soil samples and comprehend their mechanical behavior. This system also offers a significant advantage: it provides rapid, non-destructive measurements for tailings and frozen soil samples in a laboratory setting. Moreover, when integrated with existing temperature control and triaxial systems within the CFI-funded Cold Regions Engineering Facility at the University of Alberta Geotechnical Centre, this equipment will allow the research team to assess the stress-strain responses of various frozen tailing and soil samples subjected to freezing and thawing cycles. This capability has substantial practical implications for the analysis and design of tailing ponds, tailing dams, and other TSFs, as well as for foundations in cold regions.