VWS Australia To Provide Actidisk™ For Effluent Polishing

Vale Inco Nouvelle Calédonie has awarded a contract to VWS Australia for the design and supply of an effluent polishing system at its processing plant located on the South Pacific Island of New Caledonia, an overseas territory of the Republic of France.

New Caledonia has one of the world's largest coral reefs. Stringent requirements are in place to protect coral life and fragile marine ecosystems.

The effluent polishing system will remove suspended solids coming from the processing plant's acidic wastewater neutralization plant and its existing conventional clarifiers and will provide high quality treated water suitable for ocean discharge.

VWS Australia will design and supply an Actidisk™ process, a very efficient and compact process that utilizes the ACTIFLO™ high-rate, sand-ballasted clarification process followed by VWS Hydrotech Discfilters™. The Hydrotech Discfilter™ is a tertiary treatment process utilizing micro-screens capable of producing effluent with both low turbidity and low total suspended solids.

The new effluent polishing Actidisk™ plant will use three stainless steel ACTIFLO™ ACP 700 systems followed by four Hydrotech Discfilters™.

VWS Actidisk™ is a highly effective treatment scheme for achieving optimum clarification and filtration of high suspended solids water.

The process will be used at Vale Inco Nouvelle Calenonie to eliminate the risk of gypsum scale being discharged into the ecosystem. The turndown capacity will range from 8 to 70 ML/day to suit the company's requirements as per the upstream nickel processing plant. VWS is providing an integrated turnkey package, with a small footprint to minimize civil costs.