Abstract
Due to the significant growth of the world population, the accelerated growth of economic industries in various countries, and improved living conditions, freshwater consumption has increased dramatically and is currently under critical pressure. Its good use and rationing are essential. Even though mining is an industry that consumes much less water than other industries, such as agriculture, surrounding communities are constantly questioned. This occurs mainly because mining deposits are generally found in arid areas where freshwater is scarce, forcing government authorities to regulate water use in mining processes more severely. Faced with this scenario, the mining industry has innovated the use of seawater and wastewater from processes for its production processes. In addition, various projects are under development to construct desalination plants and water impulsion systems of the sea; therefore, it is expected that seawater and/or wastewater in mining will continue to grow in the coming years. Among the main challenges faced in the use of these water resources in mining is: (i) the close relationship that exists between the use of seawater and energy consumption, transferring the problem of water scarcity to a problem of energy cost overruns; (ii) generation of greater integration between the use of water and sustainable energy; and (iii) brine management is economically expensive and technically challenging and, therefore, most desalination plants discharge untreated brine directly into the sea, causing an environmental impact. On the other hand, regarding the use of these water resources in leaching processes, there are very positive results for the dissolution of copper from sulfide minerals, where the wastewater from desalination plants presents better results than seawater due to its higher concentration of chloride ions, allowing it to work at higher redox potential values in order to increase copper dissolution. This manuscript is a bibliographic review in which finally, it is concluded that it is feasible to incorporate wastewater from water desalination plants in heap leaching processes for copper sulfide ores, as long as the cost of transfer from water desalination plants to mining sites can be supported.
Highlights
The use of seawater or wastewater does not improve the leaching of oxidized minerals. In their experiments for a chalcopyrite mineral, through a previous process of agglomeration and curing, and subsequent leaching in columns, the authors indicated that when working with 100 days of curing, better extractions are obtained with the wastewater (43%) compared to seawater (37%) in 80 days of irrigation
It can be concluded that the use of seawater and/or wastewater in mining will continue to boom in the coming years
The use of seawater and desalination plants has been of great help in the face of the scenario of water shortage and the availability of water for mining operations, contributing to dewatering inland water sources, the challenges that this type of technology entail are as follows: The close relationship between seawater and energy consumption, transferring the problem of water scarcity to a problem of energy cost overruns
Summary
Water is the most precious and abundant resource on the earth’s surface, covering 71%. Freshwater resources worldwide are under critical pressure due to the great growth of the population, the accelerated growth of economic industries in several countries, and the improvement in people’s living conditions, which implies more consumption of this resource [8] Added to this is that water is distributed unevenly in almost all parts of the world [11]. This work aims to highlight the main problems and challenges presented by the mass implementation of these water resources in large-scale copper mining For this manuscript, the case of Chile will be mentioned since it is the largest copper producer in the world and the country with the largest number of projects underway for the use of seawater and wastewater in mining
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