Methods for predicting the material composition and mineral phases of coal terricones of the Western Donbas

Purpose. Justification of the methodology for testing a coal technogenic deposit. Methodology. The method of determining the separation properties of a waste heap is based on testing and determining quality indicators, or other transformative process. It is assumed to resolve the contradiction: to know the content of fractions, it is necessary to test, and to determine the mass of the sample, it is necessary to know the content of fractions. This contradiction is subsequently eliminated by testing practice, but initially it is resolved based on previous experience or a priori information. The correctness of the initial test is assessed by further determining the correlations between samples and groups of samples. The main rule of the test is the independence of observations between any pair of observations, that is, the probability of their co-occurrence must be zero. If the coefficient of determination is then the values are independent of each other. Therefore, the sampling points must be located at a considerable distance from each other. Thus, the test has two stages. The first is an exploratory one with sampling in one direction, to determine the correlation function of the selected indicator. The other stage is the main one for determining statistically independent samples in terms of distance. Results. Industrially acceptable fractions in the tailings heap of the Pavlohradsk mine have been determined, from which valuable minerals can be extracted that can be used in industrial, public and road production for over 2 billion UAH. Originality. Based on the methodology for testing random technogenic deposits, an autocorrelation function of statistically independent distances between the main samples was constructed to obtain the necessary indicators of raw material quality for further use and processing of raw materials. Practical significance. The developed waste testing scheme allows obtaining indicators of the possibility of using a technogenic deposit and economic indicators of the feasibility of such use.