Multotec launches water treatment and metals recovery division

Multotec, the mineral processing equipment supplier, has launched a water treatment and metals recovery solutions and services division in partnership with Australian company, Clean TeQ.

One of the major challenges in South Africa is maintaining a sustainable water supply. The difficulty is not necessarily the available storage space, but the contamination of the limited available water resources through mining pollution and acid mine drainage (AMD), along with other industrial operations.

CJ Liebenberg, Environmental Process Engineer at Multotec, says that the introduction of CIF® locally will have major benefits for the mining industry as a whole.

“Multotec’s core business revolves around the supply of products and services to the mining and mineral beneficiation industries including solid/liquid separation units such as centrifuges and filter presses. Our aim with CIF is to assist in the alleviation of water shortage issues and to encourage sustainable development in South Africa. Mining is often regarded as being a non-sustainable enterprise and we intend to be part of the solution,” Liebenberg said.

CIF is based on the foundation of IX technology, and has been likened with continuous sand filtration. The core differences being that in CIF charged resins are used as filtration media instead of sand, and in addition to removing suspended solids, CIF also ‘filters’ dissolved salts out of the solution.

Clean TeQ has developed three main processes based on CIF®. These are single stage CIF for resource recovery and dealkalisation applications, dual stage CIF (DeSALx) for desalination of water and high recovery reverse osmosis (HiROx), desalination using CIF on the front end of RO to remove scaling, improving the overall performance of RO, and re-using RO brine for resin regeneration for a chemical-free membrane system. All three systems can be adapted to produce a zero liquid discharge (ZLD) process.

The main features of CIF include a resin cleaning step to allow the system to operate in the presence of suspended solids, counter-current flow of aqueous and resin phases for high efficiency ion exchange and that there are minimal moving parts and no complicated internal structures. The plants can be containerised and be fully automated with remote access.

Water recoveries of around 95% have been made using this system, allowing the creation of either agricultural grade or ultra-pure water with TDS concentration reaching 50 mg/litre.  The plant has minimal pre-treatment requirements and uses inexpensive chemicals for regeneration, as well as having low power requirements, all of which keep capital and operating costs competitive.

The mobility and automated nature of the CIF allows for water treatment in remote locations as well as enabling the system to be operated independently and to be controlled remotely.

Because CIF is based on IX technology; it is able to treat water originating from numerous sources and can remove a wide range of contaminants at various concentrations. The technology has successfully been used in the treatment of coal seam gas associated water in Australia, and has the potential to be used in AMD and other mine water management processes.