Green Mining | From aqueous challenges at mines to valuable products
15650
single,single-post,postid-15650,single-format-standard,ajax_fade,page_not_loaded,,qode-theme-ver-9.3,wpb-js-composer js-comp-ver-4.12,vc_responsive
 

30 kesä From aqueous challenges at mines to valuable products

Posted at 13:22h in Public organisations by

Name: From aqueous challenges at mines to valuable products

Acronym: MinePro

Duration: 1.8.2016-31.8.2018

Total costs (€)/Tekes support : 410 / 240

Leading research organization partner: VTT

Contact persons: Pauliina Tukiainen, VTT, pauliina.tukiainen(at)vtt.fi

www: www.vtt.fi

Company partners: Terrafame, Aquaminerals, Teollisuuden vesi

 

The trend towards tightening environmental regulations has created a need for new concepts to decrease contents of various compounds in the waters exiting the mining areas.  Especially the legislation for sulphate laden discharge is tightening and mining companies are facing large investments in waste water treatment.

The aim of the MinePro project (From aqueous challenges at mines to valuable products) is to develop novel technology concepts to recover metals from mine water streams and to decrease the long term sulphate content of reverse osmosis concentrate by producing sulphur and sodium chemicals from the water treatment concentrates. The project will deliver novel technological solutions, such as new adsorbents and forward osmosis, and overall concepts for sodium hydroxide and sulphuric acid recycling. In addition, the project will deliver and demonstrate technologies for metal recycling at site. Focus is especially on magnesium, manganese, and aluminum. The project consortium consists of the entire value chain including technology and service providers as well as the end-user. Parallel to the research project, the participating companies are developing their technologies within their companies’ internal development projects. Therefore the project will develop new business ecosystem for cleantech companies.

The benefit of the development for mines is the improvement of effluent treatment process to the level required by tightening legislation. The developments also lead to decreased chemical and energy requirements for water treatment, all ensuring a higher incidence of effluent discharge compliance. Within the project, several Finnish SME’s will develop and demonstrate concepts together with international companies and therefore strengthen their co-operation networks. The demonstrations at the mine will provide the first reference to technology companies.