Hensley Wee, Long D. Nghiem, Nick Probert, Ben Hunter, Ronald Lee
Themes:
- Avoiding catastrophic failure through monitoring and containment
- Tailings repurposing that results in a step change in existing tailings volumes
- Step changes in the characterization, extraction and processing of material in the production of tailings volume.
Project title: Concentrated solar thermal drying
Research team:
- JWA Oilfield Supplies
- RPI Solutions
- University of Technology Sydney
- Low Impact Technologies
Offerings to sponsors:
The project uses solar energy technology to dewater tailings, extracting ultrapure water and other valuable materials. The quality of output water is suitable for green hydrogen production, transforming tailings dams to energy reservoirs.
Summary:
The project uses solar powered water treatment technology to dewater tailings. The technology is designed to extract water and other valuable materials from tailings, and can output a zero liquids discharge. The energy-saving extraction process also produces pure distillate from the tailings, which can be used for many purposes on-site.
The water units are solar powered, enabling them to stay on-site without costly generators to produce water for mine rehabilitation and local communities following the closure of the mine.
The project team has also won a government grant to treat produce water from oil wells, which will be tested for irrigation, livestock watering, municipal, and potable use.
Benefit for industry:
Environmental
- Eliminates wet tailings, reducing the risk of catastrophic failure and TSF footprint
- Recalling clean water
- Resource recovery
- Low or no greenhouse gas emissions
- Renewable energy source
Economic
- Extract resources with economic value from tailings
- Simple installation and low-cost maintenance
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