Abstract
Total reserves in tails in enrichment factories account for about 1.0 billion tons, and they contain copper, lead, zinc and precious metals. Therefore such tailings can be considered a major technological company and a reliable source of raw materials to build of processing company. We have studied the conditions of distribution and storage of tailings from enrichment plants. Microscopic description of the tailings material gave the following data. Chalcopyrite prevalent among the copper minerals covellite is most common in the second place, rare chalcocite, bornite, sphalerite, pyrite, arsenopyrite. The grain size of the sulfides is generally 0.01-0.03 mm. The sulfides are mainly quartz or fused to it. Rarely observed aggregates are covellite-bornite, chalcopyrite-covellite and chalcopyrite-bornite. However, not all sulphides ore sufficiently disclosed, most of them are located within grains the surrounding rocks. If disclosed ore minerals associated with grains of rocks less than 100 microns, they can be readily available for leaching. To increase the fullness of extraction of metals from sulfide located inside rock grains larger than 150-200 microns, additional measures for their opening.