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P2W's Slurry Treatment Technology

Extraction and Decontamination Technology

Water quality can typically be impacted on either directly through extraction process of mined ore body’s
mineral by different type of water sources, or via spillages, seepage or decanting water emanating from
disturbed mining areas, underground workings, waste dumps and abandoned or closed mines.
In order to liberate targeted minerals that are embedded in mined host rock, the minerals usually require
exposure to mechanical, chemical, or in some cases, biological means.
The mined (blasted, drilled or excavated) host rock, or ore, typically consists of big chunks and boulders that
require crushing and, in some instances, milling into finer particle sizes that will be dependent on the grade,
or concentration, of the mineral in the rock and/or the metallurgical process selected to extract the mineral
from the mined ore.
Most extractive metallurgical processes and beneficiation plants use wet circuits. If milling is included in the
process, the ore is typically wet with water prior to milling to form fairly dilute slurry. Metallurgical plants
use a number of methods to separate the minerals from the host rock. Since the minerals usually have a
higher specific gravity (i.e. the mineral is heavier than the host rock, for the same size of particle), the
minerals tend to settle to the bottom of solutions, or migrate to the underflow in cyclone classification
systems or gravity settling tanks (thickeners) that are usually deployed in the process circuit. Alternatively,
the very fine material can be “floated” to the surface of a solution, with the addition of chemical reagents
and air bubbles. This is known as flotation.
Some plants use a leaching process where chemicals, typically acids, dissolve the minerals. The leachate is
collected and usually precipitated. The collected concentrated solutions from the extraction process
containing the mineral are then sent for final recovery, typically at refineries and smelters while the residual
spent slurry is typically disposed of onto a tailings storage facility (TSF). Those processes converts the
natural compounds of the ore to wide range of modified chemical compounds mixed with synthetic
chemical. The use of large quantities of water in the process lead to the huge byproduct of the mining
process called Slurry. The potential of water contamination comes from the leachable compounds in the
slurry. Natural or slight acidic leachate tests are the most advanced and known laboratory process that can
stimulate future potential for underground water contamination.
One and the most common technologies of slurry decontamination are to extract the leachable contaminants
from the slurry and by different solid water separation to remove those contaminants from the solid phase.
Additional dewatering process leads to improvement in the final solid phase decontamination.
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The technology combines 3 different phases: extraction, water/solid separation and dewatering.

The extraction phase involved extraction reagent (patented formula of mix reagents) that injected into the
slurry solution and followed by appropriate mixing rate and time. The reagents mixture identity is depending
on the slurry contaminants identity and the concentration.
The solid/water separation phase can be one process or two depending on the solids concentration ratio, the
particles size distribution and the contaminants concentration. The single process combines thickeners that
remove the solid phase from the bottom and the overflow water contains the contaminants. The two step
process involved initial separation by Hydro cyclones following a commercial thickener.
The final phase is the dewatering process which eliminates almost totally the water content in the solid
phase and improves the total decontamination process.
The important phase in the process is the extraction technology, the reagents formulation and the extraction
technique is the know-how that differ of our technology. This extraction technology leads in the end of the
process to the removal of all of the extractable contaminants from the solid phase to the liquid phase.
The overall liquid (water) phase which is the byproduct of the process can be treated by any proven water
technology in the market.

Scheme 1: post extraction process, described 2 stage separation processes by Hydro cyclones following by
thickener and final dewatering process that leads to the "dry" decontaminated ore.

Scheme 1: solid/water separation and dewatering process

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