ViroMineTM Technology - Operation and Application
ViroMineTM Technology can be applied as a direct addition, active approach where media in a free-flowing powder form is added to contaminated minewater and thoroughly mixed. It can also be applied as a passive permeable barrier using a pelletized ViroMineTM media. As a general rule, treatment of waters with higher metals levels and/or low pH conditions would employ the active approach whereas, the passive approach would be used for the treatment of less contaminated waters.
ViroMineTM Technology can offer many advantages over conventional alternatives. These include:
- Optimal treatment performance. ViroMineTM Technology solutions can outperform conventional techniques, as the media and treatment plant are designed to cope with variations in wastewater quality whilst still maintaining environmental performance. Even when major changes to the minewater parameters are encountered, changes to media dose rate or minewater residence time are easily implemented ensuring continued legislative compliance.
- Flexibility of technology. Alternative formulations of ViroMineTM media, each with unique physical characteristics to suit specific environmental situations, can be applied. For example, a more alkaline media type would be used to treat heavily contaminated acidic minewaters. Cost savings can be realised as ViroMineTM media continues to absorb metals after the initial reaction period, so media rich sludge can be returned to the process after settlement, thus allowing further metal absorption to the active sites of the recycled media and hence allowing reduction in media feed rate whilst still maintaining plant performance. In addition, sludge from the treatment process can be added to the mine spoil, thereby treating the contamination at source. As a result, no sludge will leave site and contamination levels within the spoil will be gradually reduced, giving an end point to the remediation project.
- Ease of deployment. ViroMineTM reagent is safe to use, in contrast to significant health and safety concerns when using, lime or sodium hydroxide based treatments. Application of the inert ViroMineTM reagent is operationally simple, being most effective when it is intimately mixed with the material to be treated as a dry powder. Spray irrigation with reagent slurries has also proved successful. Pelletized media has been added to a variety of scenarios, including trenches, tanks and redundant lagoons.
- Ecologically safe reagent promotes the recovery of flora and fauna. Toxicological studies and field experience have shown that ViroMineTM Technology reagents have no adverse ecological impacts. Sludge from active dosing plants will continue to strengthen the mineralisation of bound metals, so that unlike traditional caustic sludges, metals are permanently fixed and are therefore, not released into the environment. Passive barriers, using pelletized media, create no sludge as metals are absorbed within the media structure. In the treatment of municipal wastewater effluent, ferrous-saturated media pellets from minewater treatment projects have been shown to have similar phosphate binding capacity as unused media, even at lower pH values. This phosphate rich media can then be used as a soil conditioner.
Figure 1 – Application of ViroMineTM media to contaminated spoil
Figure 2 – Spray application of ViroMineTM media slurry to tailings dam
