Water Treatment Solutions Presented in Mining Congress

Water is used extensively for operations and safety purposes in the burgeoning mining industry. Operators are increasingly choosing membranes to treat water responsibly and ensure that surface and ground water remain pure and uncontaminated by wastewater streams. At the Water in Mining 2012 conference (June 6th - 8th) in Santiago, Chile, Pall Corporation (USA) representatives will discuss water filtration and desalination technologies to help mining companies reduce costs, improve production processes, and protect the environment.

“Sustainable membrane performance is critical to overall plant operation and economics, particularly for the pretreatment of contaminated water and wastewater,” said Mr. Lilley. "In mine wastewater processing, Pall membrane systems are used to augment conventional water treatment methods to remove heavy metals.”

To help boost the volume of useable water, mine operators are deploying reverse osmosis (RO) systems to remove salt from sea water. “Hollow fiber membrane technologies are ideal for pretreating sea water before RO because they can handle great variations in water quality and flow rate,” said Dr. Escobar-Ferrand.

Affordable, pre-engineered and containerised Pall AriaTM membrane water treatment systems are available for rapid deployment and assembly on site, making them suitable for emergency or permanent use at mines and other industrial or municipal sites. As the cornerstone of Pall’s water treatment solutions portfolio, the Pall Aria system produces water that often surpasses even the most stringent water purity specifications.

Tim Lilley has more than 30 years of experience in water and wastewater treatment and holds a patent for a novel wastewater treatment technology. He is a Chartered Chemist and was admitted as Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 1999. Dr. Luis Escobar-Ferrand has more than 15 years of engineering experience in project management and process engineering for drinking water, wastewater, industrial water, desalination, and water reuse applications. He holds a doctorate in Chemical Engineering from Columbia University. Paul Clayton has been working in the OEM and mining industry for 22 years. He holds an honors degree in Engineering with Business Studies and is responsible for Pall’s mine water business development globally.