Mining & Metals

Water solutions & brine management for mining & metals industries

We provide comprehensive solutions for mining waters. We help to remove problem contaminants, treat mine waters, achieve minimal liquid discharge (MLD) or zero liquid discharge (ZLD), or recover valuable metals. There is no single solution for mining waters. We study your challenges and present you with cost-optimized options.

We Understand Mining Waters

Mining waters are diverse, the volumes involved can be large, and they vary seasonally. On top of that, mining locations are often remote. Mining water challenges that we help with include:

  • Selectively removing contaminants from discharge
  • Managing tailings pond capacity limits
  • Effluent flows
  • Meeting ion discharge limits (e.g. nitrate, sulfate, chloride)
  • Recovering metal content (including heavy metal)
  • Freshwater shortage/limits
  • Groundwater treatment
  • Mine dewatering
  • Acid mine drainage
Photo of a truck operating at a mining site
A photo of an upstream pre-treatment skid for a Saltworks FlexEDR electrodialysis reversal pilot plant.

Mining Chemistry Expertise

If you need to meet a discharge limit, for example, for sulfate or selenium,  we very likely have a solution for you. We know that every mining water chemistry is different and consider the use a broad suite of membrane, chemical, and thermal technologies. 

 

For a sulfate-related challenge, once a chemistry review is complete, most of our clients’ removal needs can be classified into high- and low- total dissolved solids (TDS) waters, with different approaches for each

 

For selenium, a careful consideration of the relative concentrations of selenite Se(IV) and selenate Se(VI) is critically important.

Water Management Options

Our precipitation and solids filtration solutions will selectively target and remove problem ions of concern, such as arsenic, cobalt, iron, and sulfates. BrineRefine avoids over- or under-treating and is often the cost-effective option. It also partners with reverse osmosis to remove scaling ions, enabling maximum recovery and smooth operations.

 

If more comprehensive treatment is needed, our desalination and brine management solutions can help. XtremeRO is a robust ultra-high recovery reverse osmosis system designed and built for robust operation in remote industries.

 

Our SaltMaker platform is our suite of evaporator-crystallizer solutions with different underlying technologies, configurations and sizing that can be chosen for your site needs and energy sources.

 

Our treatment professionals will help you assess the cost and performance of different options. Contact us to begin

A photo of clean water in a natural environment

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