Creating Water Solutions for the Mining Industry

Water is an essential component of every mining project in the world

Through a worldwide network of business units, VWS is present in all major mining countries (Canada, Australia, South Africa, USA, Chile, Poland, Argentina...) and, thanks to the strong links between our business units, we are able to resolve all water issues that industrial customers must cope with.

As the market for mining is cyclical and volatile, the industry needs to optimize the management of its resources.

This is why, to ensure an efficient operation of facilities and not to disturb the manufacturing process, manufacturers aim to maintain a quantity and/or quality of water resources while at the same time controlling the environmental impact of their activities. Indeed, regardless of the country, the environmental regulatory requirements will become more and more stringent. Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies will help you to comply with them.

Our understanding of the unique requirements of mine operations and associated processes enables us to provide specialised water systems.

We can offer you tailor-made and cost-effective water management systems. Focusing on technical performance, compliance with process and environmental requirements and long term cost effectiveness, we are able to meet the most demanding reliability, safety and quality standards of the mining industry.

Without water the mining process is not possible

Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies offers a range of packaged systems and develops customized solutions in order to:

• Improve productivity by treating available water for specific production process requirements, to optimise mineral production efficiency
• Manage environmental risks by treating contaminated pond and underground mine water to remove heavy metals, arsenic and other contaminants for safe discharge into sensitive environment (for instance, treating Acid Mine Drainage for the mining of ores containing sulphate minerals)
• Treat contaminated water for reuse to optimise water balance
• Add value to the bottom line by treating sludge streams, to recover suspended & dissolved constituents
• Secure high quality drinking water, even on remote mining sites
• Have a robust and reliable equipment requiring no unplanned maintenance
  

AMDRO^TM is a proprietary treatment process for desalination of acidic wastewater with high concentrations of metals and calcium salts. This process produces high-quality water with low pretreatment costs. For instance, AMDRO^TM can be used to clean up acid mine drainage for discharge (coal mining industry).

The process significantly reduces the cost for water treatment chemicals and sludge disposal as compared to the conventional approach. The technology has low capital cost, and incorporates effective scaling control to minimize the cleaning frequency for the RO membranes.

If you want more information about this process, about VWS in the mining industry in general or about our references around the world, do not hesitate to contact our team of experts.