Process water reuse for mine water treatment

Reprocess & Save Water

Water is widely used in numerous industrial processes. To name only a few, there are boiler feed waters, cooling waters, wash waters, dilution waters and many more. Water is a valuable resource and that is why we should treat it with respect and where possible, find ways to reuse it for beneficial purposes.

Process Water Reuse Challenges

Reusing water sounds great, but how to do it? It is not as easy as you might think! There are some typical challenges when it comes to reusing process waters. Especially harmful microbes like viruses and pathogenic bacteria can present straightforward hazards for production and both employee and consumer safety.

Water hardness

Scaling of surfaces

Suspended solids

Accumulation and clogging

Biological activity

Biofouling and safety risks

Circular Economy: Reuse Waters

Reusing process water is not easy but this does not mean it is impossible. The key is that it first has to be treated appropriately. Often there are opportunities to already reuse the water onsite which brings down freshwater consumption and costs. Such opportunities are easily overlooked and require careful learning of the plant operation and the processes where water is used. Roxia Plasma Oy experts can review these opportunities and help you reduce the amount of spent and discharged waters.

Microbes Mean Trouble

Microbial presence in industrial water systems presents an ample source of problems. Unless appropriately addressed, harmful bacteria and viruses are eager to populate process waters and surfaces in contact with them. Why do microbes in water present a problem?

Microbial growth can reduce process efficiency
Higher fresh water consumption
Outbreaks of harmful pathogens (eg. Legionella, Listeria …)
Microbes prevents reusing process waters for washing and cooling purposes

Microbes are mostly found in biofilms growing on surfaces such as tanks, heat exchangers and pipes. They can also cause corrosion, reduce efficiency and negatively bypass detection if you are only monitoring the running water.

Eliminate Microbes Without Chemicals

Microbes and biological growth, in general, can be a real pain in any kind of process water and prevent its reuse. That is why Roxia Plasma Oy experts came up with a solution that does not require any chemicals!

Our solution employs non-thermal plasma oxidation to control biological growth in process waters. This chemical-free process has many advantages:

Low-maintenance and automated solution
Operates with mere electricity at very high energy efficiency
Chemical-free – no need to purchase, store and feed chemicals into the water and, inherently, no generation of chlorinated byproducts.

Plasma oxidation generates reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) from ambient air and water. These RONS effectively inhibit microbial activity, making it possible to reuse process waters.

Reusing process waters can bring substantial savings in intake water consumption, wastewater production, and related costs.

Process Water Reuse

Clean water without chemicals

Substantial savings in water consumption

Low-maintenance and automated solution

Roxia Plasma experts review opportunities for water reuse

Reprocess & Save Water

Process Water Reuse Challenges

Water hardness

Scaling of surfaces

Suspended solids

Accumulation and clogging

Biological activity

Biofouling and safety risks

Circular Economy: Reuse Waters

Microbes Mean Trouble

Eliminate Microbes Without Chemicals

Contact us

Lyle Henson

Pyry Kupias

Maija Mehto

Simo Manninen