HW Process Technologies, Inc.

Engineered Membrane Separation

(EMS

) Membrane
Technology Developments for Mining Applications
(TT-145)
Metallurgical Processes Committee
Authors
J ohn. A. Lombardi VP Marketing DevelopmentMining (jlombardi@harwest.com)
Oscar A. Osores Process Engineer (oosores@harwest.com)
Company
HW Process Technologies, Inc.
1208 Quail Street Lakewood, CO 80215
United States of America
Phone 303.234.0273 Lima, Peru: 991663137
Fax 303.237.9868
1.0 Summary
Membrane technology has been available for over 50 years, but has been used
sparingly in the general mining industry. However, recent developments in polymer
chemistry, spiral-wound element construction, pretreatment equipment and techniques,
and an expanded understanding of membrane fouling and cleaning techniques have
dramatically improved the reliability and robustness of membrane-based systems for use
in the mining industry.
Membrane technology for mining applications has gone beyond producing high-quality
water from well- and sea-water by pushing forward with process water treatments to
recover and concentrate metals, reagents and clean, discharge-quality waters.
While process water membrane treatment plants resemble conventional RO
de-salting plants, they are different because of the materials of construction of the
osmosis surfaces, the micro-hydrodynamics of the membrane elements themselves, and
the customized, macro-hydrodynamic plumbing of the vessel arrays that constitute the
treatment plant. These plant differences, plus a wide variation of glues, fabrics and other
materials of construction enable the treatment of pH 1pH 13 solutions, and have opened
up a new world of micro-, ultra-, nano- and hyper-filtration treatment opportunities. The
new paradigm of solution treatments involves the removal of organics and precipitated
and suspended solids, and ion separations, including simple demineralization, multi-valent
ion separation from mono-valent ions and tri-multi-valent species separation from di-multi-
valent ion species.
2.0 Objectives
The main objective of this work is presenting state-of-the-art process alternatives
using membrane technology to face four treatment issues common in the copper, gold
and in general all the mining industry regarding process waters and streams that offer
treatment challenges to the metallurgical and process engineers.
This paper presents flow sheets for: a) acid-mine-drainage treatment circuits with,
and without, copper recovery; b) the treatment of gold mill barren for the production of low
metals content discharge water; c) the treatment of raffinate and/or electrolyte for the
recovery of organic; and d) the treatment of copper-gold cyanide PLS, a special,
2
proprietary sub-set of cyanide treatment that is an enabling technology for the treatment
of copper gold ores.
It also contains experimental data and results from the treatment applications in
bench, pilot and industrial-scale membrane plants worldwide.
3. Application and Data Collection
Membrane Technology
Membranes reject species on multiple levels, including the absolute size or shape of
specific non-charged molecules, the charge, charge density and degree of hydration of
charged inorganic salts, and, for organic compounds, on the basis of molecular weight
considerations.
Figure 1: Cut-away of Spiral-wound Membrane Element
Spiral-wound membrane elements (Figure 1) are the preferred membrane type for
mining applications due to the polyamide and fabric characteristics and design that
promotes turbulence flow through the membrane surface, avoiding solids precipitation as
they concentrate.
Both filtration and membrane processes are classified in terms of the pore size of the
barrier to the solid particle or ion respectively in an aqueous media. These processes can
be classified as micro-filtration (removes solid particles up to 0.2 to 0.4 microns),
ultra-filtration (removes solid particles up to 30-50 Armstrong), nano-filtration (removes
ions in the range of 5 to 10 Armstrong) and hyper-filtration (removes ions in the range of 1
to 5 Armstrong). This can be observed in Figure 2.
3
Particulates
MF 0.2 to 0.4
" In" H
2
O
Detergents
Protein
Bacteria
UF1 0.01 to 0.04
Starch
Gelatin
UF2 0.003 to 0.00 30 to 50
Metal Ions
Dyes
SO
4
2+
CA
2+
NF 5 to 10
Acids
Na
NO
3
Cl
-
HF 1to 5
H
2
O
Figure 2: Filtration and Separation Spectrum
Bench Testing
The first step in the development of the membrane option for the treatment of a mining
process or waste water is bench testing. Typically, 20-liter samples of candidate waters
are recovered (if available) and analyzed. The analysis thats done must recognize the
goal(s) of the water treatment (metals concentration?, clean discharge water
production?, organic recovery?) as well as the membrane treatment variables of
importance like gypsum scale formation potential, dissolved silica contents, chloride
(corrosion), temperature, pH and the like. The bench membrane test enables the selection
of membrane type and quantification of element-by-element separation efficiencies. The
bench test is the first indication of the degree of success attainable using membranes for
each of the goals of any described process or waste water treatment problem. This
relative degree of success can be further defined in regards the development of order-of-
magnitude, budgetary level, capital and operating costs.
Site Pilot Testing
The next step in the membrane process design is the performance of an on-site pilot
test (this assumes a reliable flow of candidate water is available). During this period an
entire process is evaluated in real time. Over the years, HWPT has discovered the most
important considerations for new applications always focus upon: pretreatment, proper
membrane selection, proper element construction, rejection of metals by the membranes,
4
percentage of overall recovery and, very importantly, development of an effective and
efficient membrane cleaning regime.
Figure 3: HWPTs laboratory bench equipment and 10 GPM pilot system
used for on-site process development.
A) Acid-mine-drainage treatment circuits with, and without, copper recovery
Acid mine drainage can be successfully processed and made adequate for discharge
using membrane technology.
Figure 4: AMD treatment circuits without and with copper recovery
The pre-treatment stage consists of a solid liquid separation using a combination of
traditional filtering systems such as sand, bag or cartridge filters followed by an ultra-
filtration stage.
The ultra-filtration stage uses membranes with bigger pore sizes than hyper- or nano-
filtration membranes (0.04 microns) and works on high recovery and low operating
pressure.
This pre-treatment phase generates clear water with very low suspended solids
content (TSS), able to be processed through the ion separation membranes.
5
The membrane process will generate two process streams: the larger process stream
that will contain very little dissolved solids (TDS), which is called permeate, and a smaller
volumetric flow which contains all the feed chemical species concentrated, hence a high
TDS content, called concentrate
This membrane process will be characterized by its recovery. The recovery is
expressed as a percentage, and is defined as the amount of produced permeate water
divided by the feed volumetric flow multiplied by 100.
The recovery will depend on the feed water chemistry, dissolved solids (TDS) content
and temperature.
A typical process would be on the 65-70% recovery range. Recovery in this range
results in a 3X concentration of the dissolved solids component of the feed water. For
example, a 250 ppm CuSO
4
feed water would be recovered to a 1/3
rd
volume, 750 ppm
Cu, membrane concentrate stream. The mentioned bench and pilot tests allow defining
the achievable recovery to be expected on an industrial-scale operation.
The produced permeate flow is very low in dissolved solids content and, relative to its
metals content, is typically compliant with all requirements for discharge into the
environment. Depending on the membrane used for the treatment, the pH characteristic
of the permeate may or may not be different from that of the feed water. In the case of
Acid Rock Drainage treatments, the pH of permeate is typically unchanged from that of
the feed water, and a small addition of caustic or lime is required to make the permeate
circum-neutral. The permeate is also an ideal candidate for alternative uses like make-up
water for flotation circuits, cooling towers and boilers.
A cost-benefit evaluation is required to determine the advisability of recovery of
valuable metals from a membrane concentrate.
Alternatives for concentrate post treatment, as shown in Figure 4, include simple lime
neutralization (FeCl3 is referenced only as a typical flocculant additive) and SX recovery, a
metals recovery method most specific to copper. Alternatively, for a copper AMD, the
metals could be removed and the raffinate could be lime treated. In the end, under the
best circumstance, the membrane treatment process for AMD can produce metal
(copper), sludge filter-cake, and a 100% compliant volume of discharge water. In this
case, except for waste solids, the treatment is a Zero-Liquid (waste)-Discharge (Z-L-D)
process.
6
Element
EMS

Feed
(ppm)
EMS

Concentrate
(ppm)
EMS

Permeate
(ppm)
SO
4
7,300 23,000 126
pH 2.84 2.62 3.14
Al 563 1850 8
Cu 1218 4175 28
Fe 84 269 1.3
Mg 324 1120 7.3
Mo 0.03 0.02 0.01
Na 30 128 3.0
SiO
2 REACTIVE
28 70 <4
As 0.100 0.220 <0.005
Ba <0.5 <0.5 <0.5
Pb 0.07 0.18 0.02
Ni 1.5 4.9 0.1
Zn 44 153 1.2
B <0.5 <0.5 <0.5
Mn 123 435 2.8
Hg <0.001 <0.001 <0.001
Se 0.123 0.340 0.005
Sr 0.8 2.5 <0.1
Table 1: Typical result on AMD membrane treatment (ND: Not determined)
Material balances after actual lab results
A different approach to acid mine drainage treatment is using the membrane treatment
system in combination with the traditional high-density sludge system (HDS).
Traditional HDS process would only lower the sulfates content of the AMD to the
1600-1800 ppm range (depending on the metals content of the water) and does not have
the same precipitation effect on all heavy metals, hence producing water not compliant for
discharge on sulfates and trace metals.
Membrane technology can be used as a post-treatment alternative for HDS-produced
water, producing high-quality permeates at high process recoveries (75-80% range) and
creating a second concentrate treatment opportunity to further remove sulfates and non-
compliant metals.
B) Treatment of gold mill barren for the production of low metals content
discharge water
When processing gold ores with a sodium cyanide solution, barren solutions are
generated after the gold extraction process. These barren solutions are characterized by
7
their high pH, various metals traces including gold, cyanide content, high calcium and high
carbonates or sulfates depending on the ore and processing characteristics.
In order to maintain water balances during the mining operation, it is required to treat
this barren stream, generating water that can be discharged in strict accordance to the
discharge regulations and standards.
HWPT has designed, supplied and installed 1750 M
3
/Hr Engineered Membrane
Separation

System (EMS

) at Yanacocha. Each individual skid produces 250 M

3
/Hr
EMS

Permeate and is pre-engineered to minimize field installation.

This process has been on line for five years, assisting the mine with water balance
and resource recovery. Operation has been simple and straightforward with a minimum
amount of operator interface.
Figure 5: Yanacocha 1000 m
3
/h EMS

plant, the worlds largest

membrane technology application in mining
Resource recovery in the form of gold, cyanide and strict environmental compliance
has made this investment by Newmont a huge success with the added value these plants
provide.
Yanacocha will add two more treatment plants (500 m
3
/h of produced permeate) to be
installed during 2010.

Merrill-Crowe
Barren
Solution
Concentrate
Returned
to Process
Discharge to
Environment
EMS

System
Figure 6: Yanacocha treatment flow sheet
8
C) Treatment of raffinate and/or electrolyte for the recovery of organic
The membrane treatment of raffinate and electrolyte provide a low-pressure, high-
efficiency copper SX-organic recovery method.

EMS

Return Organic
to SX
Raffinate 95% by-volume
to Heap

EMS

Return to SX
Rich Electrolyte
To EW Cells
< 5% by-volume Organic
Figure 7: Recovery of organic from raffinate and electrolyte
Due to the organic molecule characteristics and membrane pH-resistant design, this is
a straightforward process.
This treatment allows reusing the organic compound, hence generating savings in
products cost and transportation, and also provides a higher quality on the EW produced
copper, as well as a safer operation.
The organic removal efficiency of the membrane treatment is most often 99.9%. In
this case a 20 ppm entrained organic feed to the EMS

produces a 95% by-volume

copper-loaded permeate thats contaminated with only 0.02 ppm organic.
D) Treatment of copper-gold cyanide PLS (also called the Precious Metals-Base
Metals Separation Membrane)
A cyanide-contaminated pregnant leach solution (PLS) is fractionated into a small,
1/10
th
, volume copper concentrate stream and a large, 9/10
th
, volume gold stream.
The copper stream can be processed by the SART method (sulfide-acid-
reneutralization-treatment) to recover copper and return cyanide to the process. The gold-
silver permeate stream, essentially totally clean of base metals, can be processed to
recover base metals.
9

Heap
Gold Recovery
EMS

System
Cu CN Cu Rec'
CN
Au CN
CuCN
Cu
AuCN
Figure 8: Treatment of copper-gold streams
Conclusions
EMS

membrane technology has been successfully and cost-effectively applied to

mining and refinery process and wastewater streams. It enhances separation processes
in a robust, reliable, and cost-effective manner.
Bench and pilot testing allows setting the design basis for a large industrial-scale
efficient process uniquely designed to fit the application requirements.
Both permeate and concentrate provide added value to the projects. Low operator
input, low maintenance, high availability, and smaller footprint than traditional water
treatment systems are also benefits from using the membrane technology on mining.
Mining applications and required separations provide a large variety of solutions the
industry requires to improve the performance, availability and results from the extraction
processes.
10