Propuesta de recirculación de residuos líquidos mineros y/o domésticos dentro de la extracción/procesamiento de oro: empresa minera EXPAUSA.

Abstract

Mining is one of the activities that is characterized by its high consumption of raw materials, chemical products and mainly water. Therefore, the objective of this work was to establish a methodological proposal for the recirculation of mining and/or domestic liquid waste in gold processing, through the diagnosis and evaluation of the segregation/recycling of alternative sources, to give a zero-waste approach to mining activity. For this purpose, the procedure began with an environmental characterization of each of the stages involved in gold processing and in the WWTP. To know the use of water throughout the production process, the Water Footprint methodology was developed. Additionally, the minimum volume of fresh water required by the process was determined using the Water Pinch graphic method. Finally, three possible scenarios are proposed for the configuration of the liquid current network. Results showed that around 141.6 m3 of water are needed to produce 1kg of gold. In addition, it was evidenced that the consumption of fresh water occurs mainly in the grinding and cyanidation stages (4.6 m3/tsolids), corresponding to 83% of the total water demand. The most optimal scenario focuses on the reuse, recycling and regeneration of streams, which allowed an optimization of 25% of fresh water and 67% in the generation of mining liquid waste.