Water Conservation in Mineral Production

In proportion to other sectors of the economy (agriculture in particular, but even compared to municipal use) the mining industry is not a very big consumer of water. In Australia, as in South Africa and the USA, the mining industry uses between two and three percent of total water consumption (Brown, 2003; Chartres and Williams, 2003; OReilley, 2003). In Australia, this amounted to some 409 GL of water, or around 1.0 kL/tonne of ore milled, in 1995-1996 (Brown, 2003). Nevertheless, in Australia, as in northern Chile, Argentina and some parts of Africa, many mines are located in remote, arid areas, where the amount of water required for the mine is very large in proportion to local groundwater supplies, and groundwater management is particularly important. Groundwater management is also very important for mines in tropical areas, where the discharge from mining and processing operations can impact significantly on wetlands, rivers and estuaries and on extraction by nearby communities (Chartres and Williams, 2003). In other instances, mines may exist in areas where there is severe competition for water from agriculture, other industries and local populations. All of these pressures are leading to an increasing challenge to save water in mining and processing operations, including its more efficient recycling. In a landmark study carried out for the Sustainable Minerals Institute of the University of Queensland, aimed at identifying the major water-related issues facing the minerals industry internationally and the research required to support the development of practicable solutions, Brown (2002) concluded: Access to and the management of water is a significant issue for the sustainability of many mining operations and a threshold issue for some. Its is seen by many as being central to the future sustainability of the industry itself. The study found that the major uses of water in the minerals industry are for mineral processing, extraction and refining, and associated tailings disposal (see Table 1). Grinding, flotation, gravity concentration, dense medium separation, leaching and electrowinning all use large quantities of water. Implementing good water management practices that minimise waste, improving processes to minimise the requirements for water, recycling process water, using saline or other contaminated waters with or without pretreatment, and thickening tailings were identified as ways in which economies in the use of water in minerals processing operations can be achieved. In its turn, the minerals industry has not been slow to take up these options. In a keynote address to the Water in Mining 2003 Conference, John OReilly, Head of Technology of Rio Tinto, described that companys efforts to improve water management, including setting a target to reduce freshwater withdrawals by 9.5 percent by 2009. In 2002, 28 of 100 Rio Tinto managed operations did not return water to the environment (owing to permit or regulatory requirements). The total quantity of water returned to the environment in 2002 fell by 6.3 percent. In arid areas such as Namibia and Chile, improved management of tailings ponds resulted in a drop of twothirds in fresh water consumption per tonne of ore milled (to below 0.33 kL/tonne) since the early 1980s. The group is also funding research topics in thickener performance such as flocculation, thickener design and control, pumping and bed compression. Some of this work is being carried out by the participants of the ARC Minerals Research Network (i.e., at the AJ Parker Centre for Hydrometallurgy, the Particulate Fluids Processing Centre, the Centre for Multiphase Processes, the Centre for Particle and Material Interfaces and the CSIRO Division of Minerals), either individually or in collaboration through the AMIRA system. A listing of the projects is given below (Research in Australia).

Table 1 Water Use in Base Metals Refining (from Marr and Petrie, 2002) Facility Water Use Minerals Processing Transport Pyrometallurgical Utilities (cooling) Pollution abatement Granulation Small High Raw to potable Evaporation Hydrometallurgical Reaction medium Transport Utilities Pollution Abatement Large Moderate to high Potable to demineralised Inventory Evaporation Spills/Releases Products Consumption Ecotoxicity Eutrophication Acidification Chemical oxygen demand Suspended solids

Inventory Re-use Water quality Losses

Very large Very high Raw to potable Entrainment Evaporation

Environmental impact

Consumption Suspended solids

Consumption Thermal Acidification (via atmospheric transport)

Rio Tinto has not been alone in addressing the challenge of sustainable water management. A major focus of WMCs efforts is on reducing water losses through evaporation (La Nauze and Temos, 2002): small percentage reduction in this loss would impact significantly on the net quantity of water needed to be drawn from boreholes. The same paper listed other factors being addressed by WMC as: process plant water balances and recycle management to minimise make-up water; improved tails thickening performance to maximise the recycle of water to the front end of the process; ability to handle and pump tailings with a high solids concentration so as to minimise the quantity of water reporting to the tailings dam; and cost-effective reagents for the recovery (neutralisation) of liquors.

An immediate focus was on the understanding of the use of intermediate grey water, with the potential to be recycled within the plant. In South Africa, representatives of the minerals industry, several government departments and various specialists have come together to develop a set of best practice guidelines (BPGs) for water quality management in the industry. These include guidelines on water and salt balances, water monitoring systems, water reclamation and reuse, the prediction and management of longterm impacts, and the selection of water treatment technologies (Pulles, 1999). The BPGs will not be enforced by regulation, but rather through negotiation through the license process prescribed by the National Water Act. There is no doubt that the development of extraction and processing facilities that limit water use and maximise the re-use of waste water streams will be even more fundamental features of the mining industry in the future than they are at present (Chartres and Williams, 2003). However, problems arise when recycling water in mineral processing plants. Johnson (2003) documented the problems experienced in sulfide flotation plants related to the build-up of chemical and microbiological species if recycled water is not treated. Schumann et al (2003) proposed a

number of mechanisms that might alter flotation performance as a result of changing water chemistry: varying pH and Eh conditions; adsorption or precipitation of dissolved or colloidal species onto mineral surfaces; the influence of ionic strength on particle-particle interactions; the influence of dissolved species on froth characteristics (structure and stability); the interaction of dissolved species with collectors resulting in scavenging or decomposition; the interaction of dissolved species with depressants and dispersants resulting in scavenging or decomposition; and the influence of dissolved chemical species on ore dissolution.

They noted that while water comprises the major proportion of mineral pulp processed in flotation circuits, relatively little research effort had been devoted to understanding the effect of water quality in this process, and more was needed. In his comprehensive review, Brown (2002) also suggested that research be carried out to improve and reduce the costs of current water treatment methods, and to develop new methods for application in the industry. In a paper to the Canadian Mill Processors Conference in 2002, Konigsmann (2002) described the water management system at Teck Comincos Pogo project in Alaska, which maximises water recycling and treats all water coming into contact with cyanide separately from all other water streams. Thickened CIP tailings pass through a cyanide destruction process before being mixed 1:4 with filtered flotation tailings to make paste backfill for the mine. A radical alternative to water reclamation, retreatment and re-use is dry or near-dry processing, in which the demand for water is small or zero. In a recent review of the potential for the dry processing of ores, Napier-Munn and Morrison (2003) listed the advantages of dry or near-dry processing as: no tailings effluent to be disposed of, reducing disposal costs and rehabilitation demands, and limiting environmental impact; no dewatering processes are necessary (e.g. thickeners, filters, driers, etc); potentially cheaper operating costs, owing to the reduced need for pumping, aqueous chemicals, etc; potentially smaller plant footprint and capital cost; potentially more energy efficient processes; reduced product freight costs, with zero product moisture; potentially greater product recoveries and grades (though this would depend on the process and commodity).

Crushing of run-of-mine ore is already almost always carried out on a dry basis. The new technology of high pressure grinding rolls, which is being investigated for its promise of reduced energy consumption and improved liberation of minerals at coarser sizes, also operates dry. Grinding with media such as ball milling can also be done dry. In terms of dry separation processes, those used now and in the past include (Napier-Munn and Morrison, 2003): screening (which can also be done wet); classification by winnowing (as with corn); classification by air cyclones; shape sorting on shaking tables; magnetic separation (which can also be wet); electrical separation; gravity and dense medium separation (which can also be wet);

ore sorting, by optical, conductivity, radiometric, or X-ray luminescence or fluorescence properties.

Others properties exist that may be exploited in dry separation processes, like hardness (in comminution, softer material will break into finer sizes and may be screened out) or even bounceability (barren quartzitic boulders will bounce off an inclined steel plate, while diamond-bearing conglomerate will slide down: a splitter can effect a very simple separation), and many others. Dry processing routes are not without their problems, however (or they would be more widely used). Chief among these is the problem of dust (which wet processing largely eliminates) but another is the low throughput of most of the current processes, which is at odds with the very high tonnages required for the economic viability of processing many low-grade ores. Other problems relate to low energy efficiency and poor selectivity in some cases. Nevertheless, the challenge to use water more sparingly (and sustainably) in the minerals industry has led to renewed interest in dry processing. The European Union is for example funding research on the efficiencies of pneumatic jigging, dry cyclone separation, pneumatic tabling and dry dense medium separation of coal (Nottingham, 2003). Weitkamper and Wotruba (2003) have reported the development of a new air jig for dry coal beneficiation at the University of Aachen. An industrial scale prototype was constructed and commissioned in Colorado, USA, and operated at a throughput of 50 tonne per metre width per hour. Despite the very easy washability of the coal, only the +5mm fraction was cleaned efficiently, and the 5mm fraction had to be treated using a (dry) high gradient magnetic separator. Another dry processing option is ore sorting carried out after a crushing step. This has the potential to reduce the amount of gangue material proceeding into the process, with significant impact on the amount of energy and water used in subsequent processing operations. La Nauze and Temos (2002) reported that WMC has examined ore sorting technology for nickel, talc and phosphate applications. Ongoing developments in optoelectronics and the computer, together with improvements in remote sensing, have increased the traditionally low throughput rates through optical sorters substantially. If dry processing is to replace conventional mineral processing in applications where water is scarce, unavailable or difficult to recycle, research will be required to develop current dry separation methods to increase throughput and overcome other problems, and to develop new methods for separating particles, possibly based on other mineral properties. Efficient energy utilisation will be a priority.

Research Projects/Programs in Australia Constitutive properties of granular beds - related to thickening and filtration - Particulate Fluids Processing Centre Solid-liquid handling effect of flocculants (and other reagents) on the aggregation of mineral particles, and subsequent processing properties such as settling, consolidation, rheology and filtration the AJ Parker Centre for Hydrometallurgy Improving thickener technology physical modelling and plant measurements full thickener modelling using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) relating flocculation state to dewatering performance control option, process modelling and knowledge base system - the AJ Parker Centre for Hydrometallurgy Water treatment processes Centre for Water and Waste Technology (Professor David Waite, UNSW) Flocculation of fine particles in suspension control of filter cake and sediment properties, using polymer flocculation, depletion flocculation and hetero-coagulation - Centre for Multiphase Processes Saline water use CSIRO/University of Newcastle Optimising dewatering through interfacial chemistry Centre for Particle and Material Interfaces Thiosulfate leaching of gold (as an alternative to cyanide) AJ Parker Centre for Hydrometallurgy Management of cyanide containing tailings AJ Parker Centre for Hydrometallurgy Program 2 Eco-efficiency of existing operations Centre for Sustainable Resource Processing 4

International Research Projects/Programs

References : Brown, ET, Water for a Sustainable Minerals Industry, Report to Sustainable Minerals Institute, University of Queensland, 84 pp (Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre: Brisbane). Brown, ET, Water for a Sustainable Minerals Industry a Review, in Proceedings of Water in Mining 2003 Conference, Brisbane, Australia, 13-15 Oct, 2003, AusIMM Publication Series 6/2003, pp 3-14, 2003. Chartres, C and Williams, J, Competition for Australias Diminishing Water ResourcesAgriculture Versus Industry Versus Environment, in Proceedings of Water in Mining 2003 Conference, Brisbane, Australia, 13-15 Oct, 2003, AusIMM Publication Series 6/2003, pp 15-24, 2003. Johnson, NW, Issues in Maximisation of Recycling of Water in a Mineral Processing Plant, in Proceedings of Water in Mining 2003 Conference, Brisbane, Australia, 13-15 Oct, 2003, AusIMM Publication Series 6/2003, pp 239-245, 2003. Konigsmann, E, The Pogo project: flosheet development and design, in Proceedings of the 34th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Mineral Processors, Ottawa, Canada, pp 623-648, 2002. La Nauze, RD and Temos, J, Technologies for Sustainable Operations, in Proceedings of CMMI Congress International Codes, Technology and Sustainability for the Minerals Industry, Cairns, Australia, 27-28 May 2002, AusIMM Publication Series 3/2002, pp 27-33, 2002. Marr, SM and Petrie, JG, Water in the design context: a focus on base metals refining, Paper presented at the Workshop for the Mineral Processing 2002 Conference, Environmental Issues and Water Management in mineral Processing, Cape Town, 31 July, 2002, SAIMM Western Cape Branch, 2002. Napier-Munn, TJ and Morrison, RD, The Potential for the Dry Processing of Ores, in Proceedings of Water in Mining 2003 Conference, Brisbane, Australia, 13-15 Oct, 2003, AusIMM Publication Series 6/2003, pp 247-250, 2003. Nottingham University Mining and Minerals Centre, 2003. (http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/scheme/nmmc/projects/coalDryCleaning.htm/ Pulles, W, Development of best practice guidelines for water quality management in the South African mining industry, S. Afr. J. Min. Metall., 99(4): 197-200, 1999. OReilly, J, Towards Excellence in Water Management Within Rio Tinto, in Proceedings of Water in Mining 2003 Conference, Brisbane, Australia, 13-15 Oct, 2003, AusIMM Publication Series 6/2003, pp 25-28, 2003. Schumann, R, Levay, G, Dunne, R and Hart, S, Managing Process Water Quality in Base Metal Sulfide Flotation, in Proceedings of Water in Mining 2003 Conference, Brisbane, Australia, 13-15 Oct, 2003, AusIMM Publication Series 6/2003, pp 251-259, 2003. Weitkamper, L and Wotruba, H, The Development of a New Air Jig for dry Coal Beneficiation, in Proceedings of the XXII International Mineral Processing Congress, Cape Town, South Africa, 28 Sep-3 Oct 2003, pp 613-622, 2003.