Mining – Tailings and Dewatering

Mining incorporates various pumps in many applications to move slurries and liquids from one part of the mine to another. Conventional centrifugal pumps quickly degrade and lose their tolerances and suction capabilities. On the other hand, positive displacement pumps are costly to maintain and have limited pumping capabilities.

Some of the main pumping issues in the Mine industry are lined and unlined tailings ponds, underground slurry and dewatering pumping, sumps, process pumps, and pumping the target mineral-heavy material.

Tailings ponds are a necessary feature of all mining operations to store the residual byproduct of mineral extraction. If the ponds hit capacity, new tailings ponds need to be built or old tailings ponds need to be cleaned out. The tailings often have very low or high pH which causes a lot of difficulty for centrifugal and positive displacement pumps. The acidic and alkaline tailings wear out the impellers on centrifugal pumps which cause the pumps to lose tolerance and hence suction capabilities. The same occurs with positive displacement pumps and both lead to costly downtime and expensive spare parts. The same wearing of parts also occurs due to the abrasive nature of the tailings slurry.

For tailings ponds that are designed with plastic liners, a more surgical approach needs to be taken for sediment removal. Conventional dredging equipment used to remove the tailings cannot be used in this situation because of the damage that it could potentially cause to the liner. We offer pump and dredge equipment that is liner-safe and will not harm or disturb the liner.

Sumps in the mining industry collect lots of residual mining material, debris, and liquids. These sumps pose a constant problem to keep them cleaned out so that production can continue. The material that accumulates in the sumps causes constant problems for sumps pumps. Debris constantly clogs centrifugal sump pumps and the abrasive and corrosive slurries destroy the impellers and cause constant pump part replacement.

Our pumps, on the other hand, can be deployed in various pump configurations to cleanout mining sumps without causing significant downtime and costly repairs. Many of our products can be deployed electrically or hydraulically and either submersible or self-priming, depending on the situation.