Resources Dewatering

Globally, mine sites produce waste which is stored on site in Waste Storage Facilities (WSF). Of which there are currently in excess of 18,000 of these facilities that exist today. Proper maintenance/management and ultimately removal /rehabilitation of these waste facilities represents a commitment to minimizing the environmental footprint of operations, provides substantial benefits to society and ensures business strategies and activities best serve the interests of all stakeholders.

These WSF’s contain material quantities of viable minerals, which if efficiently recovered can be incorporated into saleable production. But in order to enable appropriate access to recover targeted minerals safely, economically, and sympathetically to the environment, the water which makes up generally in excess of 50% of the volume of the material by weight needs to be extracted, re purposed and the material dried in order to enable re-processing.

LIT has developed a unique dewatering system that utilizes the same parabolic mirrors as the distillation system however where the de-watering system differentiates is that it will extract and distil water from input stream where precepted solids are present in the feedstock. Mine tailings being one of only a number of examples. The Archimedes screw drives the slurry through the column and the water is distilled from the slurry and the resultant output is dried materials at a targeted moisture content desired by the client, effectively achieving Zero Liquid Discharge. Further examples of materials which the de-watering system can handle are, Oil produced water, industrial process water residential and commercial effluents and ultra-high saline reject brines from reverse osmosis operations.