Mineralogy of Tailings Dump around Selebi Phikwe Nickel-Copper Plant, Botswana

This study aimed at mineralogically characterizing the tailings dump emanating from the mining and smelting of nickel-copper (Ni-Cu) at Selebi Phikwe, Botswana, Southern Africa. Samples of tailings dump around the Selebi Phikwe Ni-Cu plant were studied using petrographic microscopy and X-ray Powder Diffraction (XRPD) technique. The tailings dump comprised of the following minerals: nickelblodite, pyrrhotite, quartz, pentlandite, malachite, chalcopyrite, actinolite, cristobalite, tremolite, kaolinite, mica and albite. Nickelblodite and malachite were mineralized from the primary ore minerals in the tailings dump. The sulfur-rich minerals contained in the tailings dump serve as principal promoting sources for acid mine drainage in the immediate surrounding environment. Consequently, aspects of pollution management such as phytoremediation and phytomining, and environmental desulfurization could be introduced as pollution control measures at Selebi Phikwe @JASE

Health Worker Opinion/Perception of Health Services provided to Patients in the Selebi Phikwe Ni-Cu Mine Area, Botswana

This study determines the prevalence of types of sicknesses and diseases affecting patients visiting health service facilities and the available health services within the Selebi Phikwe Ni-Cu mine area, Botswana. Through the administration of questionnaires and structured questions, attempts were made to establish and verify the existing human health problems at the study area by focusing on respiratory tract related symptoms of sicknesses and diseases. With the aid of statistical package for social sciences (SPSS), interpreted results from respondents indicated that all the health service providers served patients suffering from headaches, persistent coughing, chest pains, lower abdominal pains, pain when passing out urine, genital discharge and diarrhea. Seventy one percent of the health service providers indicated that their patients suffered from body weakness, 86 % indicated that they had patients who suffered from recent loss of body weight, and another 86 % pointed out that their patients had influenza/common cold. Other health complaints reported included unusual spitting, shortness of breath, palpitations, nausea/vomiting, diarrhoea, and constipation. Moreover the health service providers indicated that they had patients who suffered from significant illnesses of which some passed away. However if there are lacking facilities, patients are referred to bigger health service providers in the country. The findings of the study do not in general depict demarcating differences of health status of residents of the study area to those of the control site. A need therefore for further investigations to be conducted to establish relations of mining activities to human health at Selebi Phikwe is called for. African Journal of Health Sciences Vol. 13 (1-2) 2008: pp. 101-10

Headaches among residents within the Selebi Phikwe Nickel-Copper mining environment, Botswana

Headache occurrences among different classes of residents within a nickel-copper (Ni-Cu) mining and smelting environment in Botswana are investigated using questionnaires and statistical package for social sciences (SPSS). Interpreted results from respondents indicated that all of the health service providers, 80% of educational institutions, and 70 % of businesses enterprises had patients, learners and workers respectively, and 77 % of individuals, complained of one form of headache or the other. Similar high values were obtained when responses were considered according to study sites, especially for frontal and temple headaches. Females suffered slightly more often from headaches than males. Values for sites close to smelter/concentrator plant and mine were in general higher. Mining activities especially the release of sulphur gases and fumes into the atmosphere, and other climatic factors could possibly be contributory to the rampant occurrence of headaches at Selebi Phikwe. African Journal of Health Sciences Vol. 13 (3-4) 2006: pp. 43-5

Appraisal of Nuclear Energy as an Alternative Option in South Africa’s Energy Scenario: A Multicriteria Analysis

South Africa is being confronted with an irregular power supply, leading to persistent load shedding due to aged and unreliable coal-fired power plants. Connected with coal as a generating source for electricity from fossil fuels are environmental concerns such as emissions of greenhouse gases and climate change impacts. Nuclear energy can allay the country’s dependence on coal as a source of energy. This article, therefore, reviews the feasibility of nuclear energy using a multicriteria analysis technique. A combination of Strengths, weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to evaluate the external and internal factors that could either positively or negatively affect the country’s nuclear energy expansion drive. From the analysis, the country’s enabling laws and regulatory framework recorded the highest score of 39.2% under the strengths for the sector. In the case of the weaknesses, the high cost of construction and long construction framework recorded the highest weight, of 50.47%. Energy export and demand under the opportunities recorded a weight of 52.09%, ranking it as the highest opportunity for the sector. Seismic events were identified as the biggest threat for nuclear power expansion in the country, and the experts assigned a weight of 42.5% to this factor. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Acknowledgments: The authors acknowledge with thanks the Centre for Postgraduate Studies and the Postdoctoral Fellowship/Research Committee of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, and the Directorate of Research and Innovations of the University of Venda

Health status within the precincts of a nickel-copper mining and smelting environment

Background: Mining and smelting activities affect the biophysical environment and human health. Objective: This paper elucidates on the human health status of residents close to a nickel-copper mine and concentrator/smelter plant. Method: 600 questionnaires were administered and data generated was processed. Results: Health complaints of respondents included palpitations, lower abdominal pain, shortness of breath, constant chest pains, unusual spitting, coughing regularly, frequent headaches, loss of body weight, regular constipation, diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting, urinary pain, and unusual genital discharge. Many respondents suffered from headaches frequently with >50% from five sites. The majority of respondents having frequent influenza/common colds were from three sites. Pracetamol, aspirin and ibuprofen were taken for headache, period, back and abdominal pain. Fumes, vibrations, noise and constant movement of heavy equipment were considered as disturbing factors affecting health. Conclusion: Fumes of SO2 emanating from mining and smelting were the most suspected causative agent affecting health. Control site values for fumes, dust, vibrations and noise were very low. A link between health status and environmental pollution due to mining activities was thus inferred

A multivariate analytical approach to granulometry of kaolinitic sediments from Botswana

Investigations on granulometric characteristics of kaolinitic sediments from Makoro and Kanye in Botswana were carried out in order to apply multivariate analyses in understanding grain size distribution trends. Kaolin samples from both study sites consisted mainly of the silt (2-49 µm) fraction: (2 µm) x =18.11%; (2-49 µm) x =79.55% and (50 µm) x = 2.35% for the Makoro samples, and 23.33%, 75.03% and 1.30% respectively for the Kanye samples Clay fractions ranged from 5.0% to 42.7% with a median of 20.35% among the 30 Makoro samples, and from 4.8% to 33.3% with a median of 24.85% among the 26 Kanye samples. Particle densities for samples from both Makoro and Kanye ranged from 2.64 to 2.66gcm-3. Makoro samples contained significantly higher proportions of clay and sand, and lower percentages of silt than Kanye samples. The Kanye samples were quite distinguishable from the Makoro samples using modal size and surface area of particles. The results depicted values for particle density, mean, mode, and surface area of clayey grains to be consistent with those obtained from other kaolin deposits and occurrences from around the world.Keywords: granulometric characteristics, kaolinitic sediments, multivariate analyses, grain size distribution Botswana Journal of Technology Vol 14(1) 2005: 36-4

Influenza/common cold within the Slebi Phikwe Nickel-Copper exploitation environment, Botswana

No Abstract.AJPHERD Vol. 13 (4) 2007: pp. 473-49

Multiple data clustering algorithms applied in search of patterns of clay minerals in soils close to an abandoned manganese oxide mine

This paper proposes a multi-level approach to data clustering and provides a novel approach to characterisation of clay soils by, effectively, looking at the same clay sample from different angles. It is shown that using this approach can help avoid detection of spurious clusters or skipping vital natural grouping in data. Muscovite, illite and kaolinite were identified by X-ray diffraction (XRD) in <4 mu m fraction of soil samples obtained from the periphery of an abandoned manganese oxide mine and semi quantified as major, minor and trace. Based on information inherent in the data attributes, useful rules for grouping the samples were generated and with the aid of multiple data clustering, applied to characterize the clay minerals occurrences in the soils. The paper found that the presence of large quantities of illite and kaolinite heavily influence the formation of clusters. When the most influential variables-LJ and KJ were taken out, the resulting model showed that muscovite traces play a vital role in initial cluster building and the importance matrix of inputs suggested inter-dependence between muscovite, kaolinite and illite traces as well as between them and minor quantities of illite. Dwelling on aspects of clay mineralogy and modelling sciences, the paper marks a significant departure from the conventional approaches to clay characterisation by showing how effectively data mining methods can be adopted in the area. For a successful approach to characterisation of clay minerals in African soils, the paper recommends to set-up data repositories that will provide scientific data sources and forums in a multi-disciplinary environment. This is particularly important as capturing interesting patterns requires expert knowledge describing the emerging natural groupings. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Principal component analysis to evaluate the spatial variation of major elements in kaolin deposit

This paper explores the variations in major elements concentrations in kaolins from four different deposits in Botswana. The data were obtained from four different kaolin deposits with an additional four-class label based on particle sizes of the rock – providing a natural comparative basis between detected structural features with those of the original data attributes. Using principal component analysis (PCA), the paper reduces the data dimensionality and establishes inherent distinctive attributes of major elements accounting for the highest variation in chemical compositions of the kaolins. The principal components extracted are validated using graphical data visualization tools applied on a 28x11- dimensional data matrix of the oxides of Na, Mg, Al, Si, P, K, Ti, Mn and Fe, and loss on ignition (LOI). The validated results show that structures based on three retained components exhibit clearly discernible variations within the samples. Discretisation of the particle sizes is highlighted as both a challenge and an opportunity and it is recommended that it be used as a tuning parameter in gauging kaolin variations across samples and in validating new predictive modeling applications. Successful applications will depend on how clay and data scientists keep track, synchronise and share information relating to potentially dynamic data such as the impact of discretisation of kaolin particle sizes. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/bcse.v29i1.