Capital Equipment News January 2022

WET PROCESSING

Multotec supplies robust centrifuge technology to recover waste or product crystals to provide a concentrated product/waste stream that is economically manageable.

Getting the better of water management challenges in wet processing

While wet processing is a crucial part of mineral processing, water scarcity remains one of the burning environmental issues that operations have to contend with. However, wet processing solutions from various OEMs are helping mining and quarrying companies overcome water management challenges. By Munesu Shoko .

W ithin the extractive industries, the value of materials is significantly increased when washed, but water is a sensitive subject. According to Gerrit du Plessis, product specialist at Multotec, a major problem for mines and quarries currently is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain the requisite water use licences for expansions. “Another challenge is that deteriorating water quality due to reuse without treatment can have knock-on effects such as lower recovery rates where chemicals are involved and scaling due to an increase in the hardness of the water. There is

also, of course, an increase in costs when contaminated water has to be stored,” explains Du Plessis. Wayne Douglas, head of R&D, Innovation and Minerals Testing & Research Centre (MTRC), Mining Industry, FLSmidth, reasons that with growing populations, a larger middle class and the transition to a low- carbon, green energy future, the demand for minerals will only increase in the next decade. This means a greater environmental impact from mining. A more sustainable future, he says, requires action and FLSmidth is leading the move towards zero emissions in mining, without compromising quality or its customers’ commercial competitiveness.

“An average size concentrator with a capacity of 100 000 tonnes/day can require 50 000 to 70 000 m³ of makeup water per day. Often our largest mineral resources are found and mined in highly water-stressed regions. To address this challenge, FLSmidth provides a full suite of technologies for water recovery, including thickened tailings, paste tailings as well as filtered tailings solutions that can recover up to 95% of the water used in the process. With our full tailings solutions, EcoTails, we can provide fast filtered tailings that can be blended with waste rock to form a geotechnically stable GeoWaste that can then be conveyed and stacked,” explains Douglas. Every mine is different and has its own

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