Environmental and Safety Solutions

Adoption of Dry Stack Tailings (DST) for Sustainable Safety and Environmental Practices for Tailings Management

Dry Stack Tailings (DST) systems are particularly suited to mining operations operating in areas where water conservation is critical – they also provide significant safety and other environmental benefits too.

Water is life. The world’s water is becoming increasingly poorer in quality and a new approach to the manner in which we plan, manage and use water is required, else we are likely to have to deal with water shortages in the not too distant future. As we continue to take access to water for granted, we forget that every drop counts!

Sustainable water management, together with safety, are increasingly important topics for mining operations, investors and all stakeholders around the world; especially in areas where water conservation is critical and/or tailings failure risks are significant.
Demand for domestic, commercial and industrial water is projected to increase and sustainable water management is therefore becoming an increasingly important and challenging issue.

TAKRAF Mobile Stacking Bridge (MSB) as part of a DST solution for iron ore tailings in Mauritania.

Advantages of DST facilities

DST systems offer a number of advantages to other surface tailings storage options – some of which include:

Significant safety improvement with the risk of catastrophic dam failure and tailings runout being eliminated.
- DST facilities are also suitable to areas of high seismic activity and areas where there is limited construction material to develop a conventional retention impoundment
Reduced water requirements, principally achieved by recycling process water and near elimination of water losses through seepage and/or evaporation
Groundwater contamination through seepage is virtually eliminated
Smaller tailings footprint and can be used in “aggressive environments” (e.g. undulating or steep terrain)
Significantly better regulator and public perceptions
Easier to close and rehabilitate

Adopting a DST system with regards the management of tailings is thus a tangible approach to sustainable water and safety management efforts.

Download our Dry Stack Tailings brochure.

Please watch our latest video: Managing and disposing of processing waste safely and effectively here:

Video: Managing and disposing of processing waste safely and effectively.

Our Competence in DST – Importance of the Complete System

TAKRAF, together with our respected DELKOR liquid/solid separation brand, is your one-stop DST solutions provider. We provide a variety of solutions ranging from single equipment pieces to integrated systems and complete turnkey projects for the entire tailings process, including:

Sedimentation

DELKOR thickeners - conventional, high-rate, high density or paste

Filtration

DELKOR Horizontal Belt Filters (HBF)
DELKOR Filter Press (FP) – overhead beam or sidebar

Material handling

TAKRAF conveyors – plant, overland and shiftable
TAKRAF mobile trippers
TAKRAF Mobile Stacking Bridges (MSB)
TAKRAF spreaders – single boom, compact or superior class

We are uniquely positioned to ensure that we are able to choose from a range of equipment solutions that best caters to your specific DST requirements.

Our complete DST solutions offering – from start to finish

We boast significant competence and experience in DST:

Material testing including material characterization, thickening and filtration tests
Experienced equipment selection and operational planning team providing different levels of techno-economic studies and further engineering services
Strong expertise in high yield stress underflow with DELKOR high compaction thickener products, as well as various filtering technologies
Decades of experience in engineering and supplying conveyor and stacker systems
Developed global network for local technical support and site services

Further visual and detailed information on a typical DST filtration plant, please watch the video: Adoption of Dry Stack Tailings (DST) for sustainable safety and environmental practices.

Video: Adoption of Dry Stack Tailings (DST) for sustainable safety and environmental practices.

Sedimentation

We leverage our knowledge and experience garnered from over 30 years of providing thickeners to the mining industry and apply it to the extreme mechanical and process requirements needed when dealing with high yield stress underflows. The sedimentation method employing high compaction thickeners produces one of the highest concentrations of solids in the industry. The thickening process increases water recovery reducing the requirement for fresh water and overall environmental impact.

For more information about sedimentation please click here.

Sedimentation - Thickeners — We supply a wide variety of thickening equipment, with designs of up to 100 m in diameter.

Filtration

We are in the unique position to be able supply a filtration system based on the most appropriate technology to actual process and customer requirements, rather than supplying equipment in our product portfolio based on a single technology.

Our DELKOR horizontal vacuum belt filters are an efficient and reliable solution for dewatering a wide range of materials
Our DELKOR filter press FP solutions span two different filter press technologies: overhead beam or sidebar

For more information about filtration please click here.

DELKOR filter presses — DELKOR overhead beam filter presses as part of a DST solution for gold tailings in Uzbekistan.

Material Handling

The safe and efficient conveying and dumping of materials with challenging properties is what we have been doing for the past 200 years. Our material handling solutions cover all forms of DST requirements for the safe and efficient, movement of filtered tailings - maximizing availability to maintain plant uptime. By stacking compacted tailings, land requirements are reduced and the risk of catastrophic dam failures is eliminated.

Conventional tailings storage methods incur costs post-mine closeout due to maintenance; however, DST areas can be rehabilitated and blend with the natural environment.

Our depth and breadth of DST equipment includes conveyors (plant, overland and shiftable), mobile trippers, mobile stacking bridges and spreaders (single boom, compact or superior class).

Please have a look at our wide range of material handling systems.