English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Cobalt-Rich Crust (CRC) is a kind of mineral deposit abundantly distributed on the top and slope of seamount at a depth of 8002400 m in the Middle and South of the Pacific Ocean. The main components of CRC are oxides of manganese and iron, as well as trace amounts of valuable metals including cobalt, nickel, copper, platinum, etc. With the increase of the demands for valuable metals, CRC is considered to be a new mineral resource in the future. Nowadays, the concept for CRC mining is mainly based on manganese nodule mining system for the CRC-crushing and hybrid (continuous line bucket (CLB) and hydraulic-lift) mining system, which uses a self-propelling miner with vibrators to crush CRC for lifting up to the ship from the seamount. One of the technical challenges is to excavate the CRC on the slope of steep seamount. A few modified concepts have been proposed which are similar to land mining methods, such as coal cutting and the cuttersuction head as used in shallow-water dredging for placer mining. However, they have not been studied yet for deep-sea application. Lifting CRC would require much more preparation at the deepsea level than shallow-water dredging. Further, unlike manganese nodule distributed on the seafloor surface, CRC is firmly fixed or buried on the seamount. Such issues are still a big challenge [1]. Conventional crushing method in mineral processing is based on mechanical comminution. Mechanical comminution disintegrates the material at random fragmentation or along the fragile fraction of its structure, however, crushed fragments include different kinds of components. Different from mechanical comminution, crushing or liberation by high-voltage impulse (i.e. electrical disintegration) for the separation of different materials for mineral beneficiation and recovery has been proposed and researched in recent years [210]. The high voltage current flows along the grain boundaries of minerals with different electrical parameters in it. Joule heat or the impact of the high voltage current causes the cracking along the boundary to make a precious separation of the different materials along the boundaries and gangue materials. Until now, electrical disintegration was mainly performed in distilled water or insulated lubricant oil. Employing highvoltage impulse for crushing in conductive solution has seldom been reported. If it is possible to employ high-voltage impulse to disintegrate CRC in seawater, it could be a new concept and approach for the exploitation of CRC in deep-sea. In this study, the feasibility of employing high-voltage impulse for the disintegration of CRC in conductive solution and seawater was investigated. Finally, a schematic diagram of employing high-voltage impulse for CRC mining was proposed. A Preliminary Study on Employing High-Voltage Impulse for the Exploitation of Cobalt-Rich Crust