Water Wheel March 2022: Upfront

Abstract

NEWS Extracting value from acid mine drainage the host environment; hence the urgent need to contain and mitigate the risk of contamination. Conventional technologies to treat AMD often rely on the use of a lime and filtration technology that generated toxic sludge. This has prompted the need to look for alternative technologies with a minimum or zero ecological footprint. The CSIR’s quest to find an alternative cleaner technology to curtail the impact of AMD on the environment resulted in the development of a robust treatment technology called magnesite softening reverse osmosis. The game-changing technology relies on a combination of activated magnesite, softeners and reverse osmosis to recover valuable minerals at different stages of the process. The technology has been tested and validated at a laboratory and a pilot plant with a 20 000 litre per day capacity, located at the CSIR in Pretoria. The plant’s robustness has been assessed against effluents that emanate from coal and gold mines.

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