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The low-cost technology of quarry water

purifying using the artificial filters of overburden
rock

Article in Pollution Research February 2016

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Kuzbass State Technical University Tomsk Polytechnic University
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Poll Res. 34 (4) : 825-830 (2015) 825
Copyright EM International
ISSN 02578050
THE LOW-COST TECHNOLOGY OF QUARRY WATER PURIFYING
USING THE ARTIFICIAL FILTERS OF OVERBURDEN ROCK
M. TYULENEV1*, S. ZHIRONKIN2 AND O. LITVIN1
1
Department of Open Pit Mining, Kuzbass State Technical University, Kemerovo, 650000,
Vesennyaya St., 28, Russia
2
Department of Economy, National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University , Tomsk,
634050, Lenin Av., 30, Russia
(Received 10 september, 2015; accepted 20 November, 2015)

ABSTRACT
Influence of open-cast mining of mineral deposits on environment is substantial. It includes
change of a landscape, violation of hydrological conditions and water and air pollution. But the
greatest pollution of mining enterprises is being caused to surface water sources. It is caused by
high maintenance of a suspension and other contaminants in the disposal water, its considerable
volume and rather low efficiency of purifying facilities that doesnt allow proper waste water
purifying to the norm of disposal. The article contains a description of the filtering rate
characterizing the intensity of suspended material grains settling in the pores of the filter array.
The change of the filtering rate on the height of the filter array is described. The technology that
allows improving the quality of open pit waste water purification is presented. The schemes and
location of artificial rock arrays currently exist on several open pit coal enterprises are given.
KEY WORDS : Open pit mining, Quarry waste waters, Artificial filtering array, Dumps,
Overburden rocks.

INTRODUCTION the pits (Zhironkin, 2002). In a summer and in a

Today coal miming is the perspective way to
produce energy resources. The highest productivity
of coal miming can be achieved on open pits (World
Energy Council, 2013). But open pit mining
enterprises are not only the source of coal but also
the source of water pollution. Waste waters of open
pits are generally polluted by the suspended
material (Foess et al., 1980). They contain sand and
coal particles with grain size to 50 microns. The
content of the suspended material in open pit water
fluctuates over a wide range among different open
pits as well as among the seasons of the year,
reaching up in some cases to 10000 mg/L. The
average contain of suspensions in open pit water
without preliminary purifying is 100-300 mg/L
(Lesin et al., 2010).
Within a year the content of the suspended
material in waste water changes in wide range. The
highest concentration of suspensions in open pit
water is noted in spring. It is explained by fast
melting of snow and a drain of melt snow water into
Corresponding authors email: tma.geolog@kuzstu.ru
winter concentration of suspended material in open
pit water is much lower. Anyway for developing
country it is important to imply low-cost
technologies of wastewater purifying all over the
year (Gupta et al., 2015).
One of the main methods of water purification
applied now on coal open pits is settling (Viesman et
al., 1993). But not all open pits have water disposal
conditions for effective water purifying by settling.
It is caused by the following main reasons:
(1) In some cases open pit mining enterprises have
no possibility to create waste water purifying
facilities of sufficient sizes due to the lack of free
surface area. Sometimes mining enterprises
cannot invest additional money in water
purifying stations due to lack of funds (Lei et al.,
2011). For example, on the open pits of South
Kuzbass (Russia) the lack of free surface area is
caused by a mountainous landscape all around
the district.
(2) Purifying facilities are often overloaded due to
considerable fluctuations of volume of open pits
826 TYULENEV ET AL
water disposal and their contamination. That
decreases the efficiency of water purification
significantly.
(3) The quantity and a location of water disposal are
being constantly changed because of the
development and forwarding of the open pit
mining operations front. As a rule, water
disposal spots are located widely.
(4) Construction and maintaining of waste water
purifying facilities requires large investment.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
According to the shortcomings described above,
scientists of Kuzbass State Technical University
(Russia, Kemerovo region) with open pit
enterprises engineers implemented the method of
purification of waste waters with filtering through
the artificial filtering arrays made from mining
shorts (Tyulenev et al., 2014). This method passed
tests successfully and was implemented on a
number of open pits of Siberia and the Russia Far
East.
The method is based on the following. The
overburden rocks of Kuzbass open pits are generally
presented by rather strong, anti-washout sandstone
capable to retain suspended material from filtering
water. For checking this, the field tests of the
intensity of suspended material settling were made
on the rock dumps and technological embankments
of Kuzbass open pits. The open pits waste water
polluted by fine-dispersed rock and coal were used
as a suspension. The substance of research consisted
in sampling of open pits waste water before and
after filtration through the blocks of overburden
rocks and the laboratory analysis of their structure
with the following determination of intensity of
suspensions settling in the filtering arrays.
During waste water filtration in overburden rock
the settling of suspensions and clarification of the
filtered water take place. The following dependence
between concentration of the substances Cx and
water filtration length in a dump x was specified:
C x = C0 exp ( x ) , .. (1)
wherein C0 initial concentration of the
substances in the water, mg/L; h indicator of
filtering.
Minimum length of the filter L (m) wherein waste
water purifying will be provided to the desired
extent is found from (1) with Co = mpc:
1 C0
L= ln ,
Cmpc .. (2)
wherein Cmpc maximum permissible concen-
tration of the suspended material in clarified water.
Consequently, the intensity of settlement of
suspended material in the pores of filtering
materials (filtering index) can be estimated by the
formula:
1 C0
= ln , .. (3)
L Cm
wherein L the distance between points of entry
and exit of water from the filtering array in meters;
Cm the concentration of suspended material
after water purifying, mg/L.
The research resulted in finding inverse
exponential relation between filtration rate and the
grains of filtering array average diameter for
suspended material pieces of different granularity.
Moreover the larger the grains of filtering array are
the more intensively the filtration rate is decreasing.
The dependence of filtration rate variance in the
height of the filtering array for suspended material
grains of the different granularity was also revealed.
Suspended material capturing in a porous
medium is the result of grains jamming in the
narrow pores and their adhesion to the walls of the
wide pore channels (Ryzhkov et al., 1996; Tyulenev
et al., 2014; Jayakody et al., 2014). Therefore the
filtering rate h, characterizing the intensity of the i-
th fraction of dispersed particles in the filtering array
may be expressed as the following sum (Lesin et al.,
2010):
i = c.i + a.i , .. (4)
wherein c.i the measure of the intensity of
suspended material grains catching in the narrow
pore channels;
a.i the measure of suspended material grains
adhesion to the pieces of the filtering array.
Indicators c.i and a.i are based on the
calculated structural parameters of the
filtering array, suspended material grains
and hydrodynamic factors.
As a result of several experiments, it was found
that the rate of filtering is in reverse dependence on
the average diameter of the filtering array pieces,
and also for larger fractions of suspension the
filtering rate decreases more rapidly. And at a
828 TYULENEV ET AL

purifying using artificial rock arrays is presented on to collect purified water for industrial or other needs
Fig. 2. of the enterprise. Otherwise, the levee should not be
dumped, and water goes underground filtering in
by gravity.
As an example, on Fig. 3-4 the location of artificial
filtering array is shown. This artificial rock arrays
currently exist on several open pit coal enterprises of
Kuzbass (Western Siberia, Russia).
As it follows from Fig. 3, this filtering array was
dumped directly on almost horizontal rock bed. So
in this case it is necessary to dump the impermeable
levee.
As it follows from Fig. 4, this filtering array was
also dumped on the rock bed. But considering the
prominence, the place of arrays initiation was
chosen straightforwardly to the narrow. It allows to

Fig. 2. Construction of the filtering array with waterproof

stopping: a plan view, b longitudinal section, c
cross section; 1 the bottom of the filter; 2
filtering array; 3 receiver for contaminated
water; 4 waterproof stopping; 5 lodgement of
purified water; 6 conduit for feeding for
contaminated water; 7 conduit for purified
water removing; 8 water retention levee.

The filter manufactured under this technology

works as follows. The purified water flows into the Fig. 3. Artificial filtering array on the open pit coal
water inlet and begins to move along the lower part enterprise Ananyin, located in the southern part
of the filtering array filled with lumpy rocks. In such of Kuzbass
movement, the filtration rate is large, and the degree
of water purifying is reduced in comparison with
the degree of purification in a dice rock layer. The
water reaches the first waterproof stopping and
begins to accumulate in front of it, forming up some
kind of pond until the water level exceeds the height
of the stopping. At small flow rates this pond also
performs the function of settling tank, wherein the
largest suspended material grains with high
sedimentation rate are settling. Then water
overflows over waterproof stopping comb and
slowly filters this way through the layer of fractions
with a smaller average diameter. Then the cycle is
repeated. So the water flows along the entire length
of the filter array, accumulating in the sump of
purified water, where it can be pumped. Fig. 4. Artificial filter array on the open pit coal
Limiting levee in the lower part of the filtering enterprise Kaighur, located in the northern part
array should be dumped only when there is a need of Kuzbass
 THE LOW-COST TECHNOLOGY OF QUARRY WATER PURIFYING USING THE ARTIFICIAL 829
avoid the impermeable levee dumping and gives
favorable opportunity to construct this filter as soon
as possible. The general plan of the filtering array is
similar to the one shown on Fig. 2.
So if the filtering array is made on a flat surface,
it is necessary after the complete formation of the
filter bed to produce dumping levee of impermeable
overburden rock around the perimeter of the filter in
order to avoid seepage of water, as well as to avoid
water intake to the dumping pond. However
despite evidential and confirmed on Kuzbass open
pits low costs of this technology of wastewater
purifying, there is the wide area of further research.
In particular we consider important the studies of
nanoparticles in wastewater treatment
(Esakkimuthu et al., 2014) and specification of using
theory bases in wastewater purifying practice
(Thiruvengadam et al., 2014).
CONCLUSIONS
The proposed technological solution allows to
purify open pit waste water up to the ecological
requirements with low capital expenditures for the
construction of filtering plants, as the costs for the
construction of an artificial filtering array are
approximately equal to the costs of peripheral dozer
dumping, i.e. additional investments are not
needed. In addition, it should be noticed that rocks
already existing in the dumps can be used as
artificial filtering arrays.
However, further research is required to better
understand and document the potential
environmental effects of using different minerals for
dumping artificial filtering arrays, not only in Russia
but worldwide.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The research was made in Kuzbass State Technical
University (Russia) with financial support of the
Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian
Federation in the framework of scientific research
Exploring the parameters of technological and
technical solutions for selection and development of
improving cutting and extracting mining machines
operation efficiency in Kuzbass, contract 632. The
authors would like to thank to prof. Alexey
Khoreshok, prof. Yury Lesin for their discussions
during the study. We thank anonymous referees for
constructive and useful comments on the papers
sent via e-mail.
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