Sustainable solutions for the mining industry

The mining industry faces growing challenges globally on how to use water efficiently, how to recover and recirculate water and how to reduce the areas needed for tailings storage. Paste technology can be used to efficiently recover water from tailing, making it a sustainable solution for tailing treament, especially in dry regions. The technology can now also be used to make it easier to restore the landscape in a safe way after a mine is closed.

Paste technology means that instead of pumping untreated tailings from the concentrator into tailing ponds, the sand is dewatered to a point when it does not segregate as deposit. “Paste technology is now widely acknowledged and at the moment Outotec has ongoing paste projects all over the world,” says Anders Nyström, Technology Sales Manager of Paste and Backfill Solutions at Outotec. “Using paste technology, the tailings form a conical pile and do not need big ponds to be stored in. This means that the disposal area is much smaller compared to conventional tailing ponds and the danger of leakage is minimal,” he explains.

Anders Nyström first worked with paste technology when he was leading a project aiming at minimising the area needed for tailings disposal at a mine in Canada back in 2002.

“The mine was not allowed to extend the tailing ponds but could use the existing tailing pond by placing the paste tailings on top of the existing tailings. This was possible only by using paste technology.

Especially for dry areas

Anders Nyström says that the mining industry faces growing challenges globally on how to use water efficiently, how to recover and recirculate water, and how to reduce the areas needed for tailings storage.

“That’s why the market for new sustainable solutions for tailings treatment is growing,” he says. “Since the water from the tailings is efficiently recovered using paste technology, the water can be used over and over again. This makes the technology attractive especially in dry regions.”

He also points out that paste technology makes it much easier to restore the landscape in a safe way after a mine is closed.

“We are now investigating the possibility with adding fertilisers and seed to the tailings through the paste plant some time before the mine will be closed down. This way the restoration process needs very little extra work. By using this method the closure process can be started in good time, saving time and money and in an environmental way improving the closure process.”

Stabilising mined out areas

With the recent acquisition of the Australian company Backfill Specialists, Outotec can now offer more comprehensive tailings treatment solutions to the mining industry.

“Paste backfill is mainly used to stabilise underground excavations,” says Mathew Revell head of Outotec’s Paste and Backfill Solutions business. “It means that a mix of paste and cement is pumped into previously mined stopes to form a rock solid material.”

The paste backfill supports, for example, the walls of adjacent adits as mining progresses.

“This way the mine can be utilised to a maximum since it makes it possible to mine all of the ore deposit,” Mathew Revell explains. “The paste backfill can also serve as a working platform in a mine. In short, by using paste backfill the mines can be utilised more efficiently and, above all, safely.”

Since the cost of the binding material is essential for the competitiveness of paste backfilling, optimising the consistence of the paste can be crucial.

“The mix variables must always be optimised to provide a backfill material that exactly meets the demands of the individual project,” Mathew Revell says. “With this knowledge accessible, it is possible for us to develop more efficient and more cost-effective backfilling solutions than ever before.”