Forward osmosis as a part of water concepts in mining industry

Water is a necessary component in mining industry. Good water quality enables good enrichments and high yields in hydrometallurgical processes. Waste water from mining industry needs to be purified before discharging to keep surrounding environment clean. However, large water volumes and targeting to high removal of harmful compounds can cause strong economical barrier for the water treatment. Forward osmosis (FO) can in mining industry be an attractive technology, especially if one process stream in a mine is concentrated and another stream acts as a draw solution becoming diluted with good quality FO water. FO can be utilized both in concentrating and diluting purposes and thereby is a good addition to water treatment concepts. One example of the concept building is the improvement of settling pond operation by drawing water out from the pond in order to increase the precipitation of gypsum. Good quality water is at the same time taken into the sea water. Dilution of sea water decreases the total dry solid matter of the feed decreasing the operating pressure and thus the processing costs of desalination