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CPMT was supplied by HajarHydrometallurgy Plant (HHP), a subsidiary o f Mana gem Group; 35 km far away from Marrakech city, Morocco. Cal aminę hydrometallurgi cal process (Figurę 4.1) is designed to extract zinc from a volcano-sedimentary polymetallic sulfide ore. The calamine ore is treated using sulfuric aeid leaching method, followed by an oxidation, cementation and precipitation of zinc sulfates, and finally calcination of the zinc hydroxides to produce commercial zinc oxides. During the leaching processing, large amounts of tailings are produccd and landfilled nearby the plant. The amount of tailings landfilled to datę is close to 0.5 million tons (Kaddami,2013). Dueto the increasing demand onlead metal anditsimportant eon tent in the landfilled wastes, the company decided to recover the remaining lead in these wastes using a flotation pilot scalę. During this process, a secondary waste called treated calamine process minę tailings (TCPMT) is produced.

A representative sample of CPMT was collected from the tailings dam with a moisture content of 20 wt.%. After the recovery of lead sulfide by flotation process, a representative sample of TCPMT was collected. The samples had agglomerated aggregates and were therefore dried atlow temperaturę (60° C), de agglomerated, sieved to produce <200jim particies samples, homogenized, separated and sealed in plastic bags until they were tested.