Industries

  • Keeping your Reverse Osmosis plant at peak performance

Mining

Osmoflo treats more water used in mining than any other company in Australia. Our plants provide process and drinking water from raw water of  wide ranging quality and salinity. So it is not surprising that our client list includes many of the blue chip mining companies operating in Australia.    

Invariably mining operations are in remote locations where extreme weather conditions prevail. Osmoflo has a long established track record in providing and supporting the right equipment that guarantees reliability of water supplies for drinking and process requirements. PlantConnect®, Osmoflo's proprietary plant control and monitoring system linked to our 24 hour manned Operations Control Centre, helps ensure efficient performance regardless of location.

Applications include;

  • desalinated drinking and general use water
  • high purity water for processing ore and minerals
  • water for gas turbine operation
  • treatment of mine drainage water for release back into natural water catchments

Our Projects

  • Desalination solution for several source water intakes

    Desalination solution for several source water intakes

    A newly developed flotation process which forms part of the minerals recovery process at the Mount Weld rare earth mine near Laverton in WA is sensitive to water quality. Overcoming that problem a 2.3 megalitres per day (ML/d) reverse osmosis desalination plant is now supplying the mine with water to the consistent standard required. The plant has been financed, built and is being operated by Osmoflo through a of a 10-year Build Own Operate contract. It has been designed to concurrently treat water from two different sources and of vastly different quality. The primary source is saline bore water (5,600 mg/L Total Dissolved Solids) which also contains high levels of magnesium and silica. Both can be detrimental to the performance of some reverse osmosis membranes so special consideration was given to the selection of the most appropriate membrane type for this project. Following treatment, TDS content is less than 150 mg/L. Some feed water is also sourced from a tailings dam. To cope with the differences in feed water characteristics from each source, the plant consists of two trains each of which has its own multi-media and microfiltration pre-treatment systems prior to desalination. Apart from special membranes, plant design and engineering takes into account the remote location with built in additional redundancy of major systems.

  • Water for sand mining in remote Eucla Basin

    Water for sand mining in remote Eucla Basin

    Iluka Resources Jacinth-Ambrosia mineral sands mine currently under development in the Eucla Basin some 200 km north west of Ceduna SA is reputed to be the largest zircon deposit discovered in decades. The only available water comes from highly saline bores - 51,000 mg/L Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) which are located 30km away. Osmoflo was contracted to supply a desalination plant which could provide water of potable grade standard for construction workers and for use in civil works, however the presence of high manganese and iron levels in the feed water, both of which impact negatively on membrane performance, presented a particular challenge. Osmoflo conducted trials with a pilot plant to develop a practical solution before proceeding with a 400kL/d permanent plant which it operates and maintains, The pre-treatment system includes pH adjustment of the feed water from the bores prior to storage in an aeration dam where iron is settled out. The water is then fed through a multimedia filter with special iron removal media before passing through the reverse osmosis membranes. Reject water containing brine is reused in ore slurry processes at the mine.

  • Recycling mine water for environmental use

    Recycling mine water for environmental use

    Successful underground mining at Xstrata's Ulan Coal Mine, located near Mudgee, NSW requires the extraction of large volumes of water. A reverse osmosis plant and microfiltration pre-treatment system provided by Osmoflo enables the water to be recycled back into the environment along with on-site irrigation. The release of this water in an area that has suffered extensive, prolonged drought is bringing life to streams that have not flowed for many years resulting in the rejuvenation of native flora and fauna and replenishment of fish stocks.