Mining operations can produce a large amount of wastewater in the form of spent liquor that requires treatment. The wastewater stream has a high concentration of contaminants that need to be separated from the water before it can be discharged or reused. Dynatec has provided a system to a phosphate mining operation that treats five million gallons of wastewater per day. The customer was motivated to put a treatment/reuse system to separate a portion of the compounds in the wastewater for reuse. Also, the desired water quality for discharge met requirements for reuse of several water users in the plant.
Dynatec was asked to conduct a pilot to study the feasibility of using membrane technology to purify the wastewater so that it could be reused in mining operations at the site. After several months of piloting, Dynatec was commissioned to supply five ultrafiltration skids, each capable of producing one million gallons per day of permeate. The ultrafilters were a part of the reuse system that also includes nanofiltration and reverse osmosis to produce water and product for reuse.
Due to the highly saturated wastewater stream, the pH of the wastewater was maintained at 1.8 s.u. to keep specific contaminants from precipitating in the membrane systems. The ultrafilters have successfully operated at this pH for over 10 years and their life span has not been negatively impacted by the nature of the wastewater.
The high strength spent liquor is processed through a series of membranes from UF to NF to RO. The customer has found reuse applications for reject and permeate from the membrane systems. The final system has alleviated concerns of future environmental infractions and has saved the customer money.
Contact Dynatec Systems to discuss your wastewater solution.
https://www.dynatecsystems.com/technologies/recovery-and-reuse/