Information on Mining Water Desalination |
Posted: January 16, 2017 |
Mining is an industry that requires a high level of water consumption. It can’t rely on fresh water sources as it will disrupt the supply of drinking water for the local communities. Many people often complain that mining will lower the quality of the drinking water if they draw water from freshwater sources for their mining projects. This is the reason why many mining companies are turning to desalination for the mining operation. Modular solution of desalination plant can be easily set up in remote locations with minimal set up cost. Desalination can be a solution to a mining industry that is located in places that constantly experience drought. Drought has forced the government to make it mandatory for the mining sector to build their own desalination plants so that they can filter away the water from the sea for use in their mining operations. For example, in Chile, several mining desalination plants have been established to meet the water demand for the copper mining industry. The desalination plant uses reverse osmosis technology to pump the sea water into a tank. The saline water must pass through several pre-treatment stages before it goes through a number of semi permeable membranes to be filtered. The mining water treatment desalination plant can produce more than 51 gigalitres of water per year. The water that is being filtered will be stored in a reservoir that has the capacity to hold several megalitres of water. The installed desalination unit can be controlled with a remote monitoring system. It is programmable to perform a variety of functions. Desalination is an expensive process but a lot of development have taken place in the past decades to increase its efficiency and reduce the cost. The pressure recovery devices can help to save a lot of energy during the desalination process. The desalination plants are usually located near to the mining companies so that it is easy to transport the filtered water for the mining operation. If the plant is located far away, it can be costly to transport the water to the mine. It is forecast that over 50% of the water in the mining industry in the future will be derived from the sea water. Today, only about 20% of the sea water is being used in the desalination process. Many companies are looking to desalination as a way of getting clean water for the mining process because there is no longer enough freshwater. Desalination plants have been built in several countries for mining industries including Australia, and South Africa. It is consistently able to produce a high volume of clean water even though there is a serious weather condition such as drought. Mining desalination water solution is able to properly dispose the brackish water that is not processed in an environmentally responsible method. The desalination plant can produce water for the mining industry according to the safety regulation set by the government. Many desalination plants use zero liquid discharge to reduce the environmental impact of disposing the concentrated brine solution.
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