GenMine Knowledge Base

Knowledge Base

Australia - Making Borehole Water Potable

A zinc and lead mine in North West Queensland needed to produce potable water from local boreholes, for use in the camp, to support the development of the mine. However, there were major problems with calcium sulfate scale and issues with pH, thus rendering the current antiscalants being used as ineffective.

Ghana - Environmental Discharge at a Ghanaian Gold Mine

A large international mining company needed to reduce the nitrate, sulfate and ammonia content of the water discharged from a gold mine in Ghana to meet stringent regulations.

Peru - Barren Solution Treatment at a Peruvian Gold Mine

A gold mine in Northern Central Peru operated by a major American mining company needed to reduce the level of dissolved salts, cyanide and traces of gold contaminants in barren solution, to comply with environmental regulations for discharge.

USA - Phosphate Mine and Chemical Plant

This large, vertically-integrated phosphate mine and chemical plant in the USA uses eight boilers to meet its steam requirements. A state-of-the art reverse osmosis (RO) membrane system was installed in 2009 to improve the feed water. However, despite the use of a silica-specific antiscalant, the membranes needed to be cleaned increasingly frequently.

Extraction Conference Ottawa 2018 - Presentation: Keeping Mine-Water Membranes Clean

Presentation Agenda: What is a Reverse Osmosis Membrane? What do membranes do? Why useful in mining? Where are they used? What are the problems? New methods to keep membranes clean.

IMWA 2016 Annual Conference - Membranes and mine water – waste or revenue stream

Membrane technologies are capable of treating mine waste waters to produce clean permeate water for reuse and a concentrate stream that can be used for valuable metals recovery. In this paper the authors have researched and identified 363 mines with potential to use Reverse Osmosis (RO) Nanofiltration (NF) and Ultrafiltration (UF) membrane technology.

MME Conference Lisbon 2019 - Cleaning Calcium Sulfate in Mine Water Membranes

Mining industries continue to use large volumes of water to facilitate the extraction of precious metals from rock, resulting in large quantities of waste water. Membrane technologies are capable of producing clean permeate water for reuse onsite, and the concentrate stream can be used for precious metal recovery.

MME Conference Lisbon 2019 - Controlling Calcium Sulfate Scale Formation In Acid Mine Waters

Membrane technologies are capable of treating mine waste waters to produce clean permeate water for reuse and a concentrate stream that can be used for valuable metals recovery. Reverse Osmosis (RO), Nano-filtration (NF) and Ultra-filtration (UF) technology is increasingly being adopted.