ABSTRACT
The fire caused by spontaneous combustion of sulfide ore is one of the major disasters in mining high sulfur content ores, which affects about 30% of metalliferous mines in China (Pan, W. et al. 2010). Ore spontaneous combustion not only results in the loss of ore, but also causes plenty of engineering abandonment and the waste of resources. Meanwhile toxic air produced by ore spontaneous combustion will pollute the underground environment and affect the health of workers (Soundararajan, R. et al. 1996, Yang, F.Q. & Wu, C. 2010). The fundamental reason for internally-caused fire is the combustion and exothermic reaction of sulfur in the ore (Pan, W. & Wu, C. 2011), while enough oxygen and constant heat concentration are the main external factors (Wang, L.L. et al. 2010, Yang, F.Q. et al. 2011). Traditional suppression measures on spontaneous combustion of sulfide ore are mainly concentrated on cutting off the air and accelerating heat dissipation, which can’t fundamentally solve the problem of sulfur oxide and eradicate internally-caused fire (Wu, D.M. 2001, Li, Z.J. et al. 2009). Combined with the basic principles of solution mining and control of internallycaused fire and focusing on the sulfur content of mineral surface, the bacteria desulfurization technology uses bacteria to degrade the sulfide ore on the mineral surface, thus seeking a new method to prevent and control internally-caused fire.
