Water footprint assessment of mining and processing of gold

Download

10451545.pdf

Date

2022-1-3

Author

Güney, Emre

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

341
views

491
downloads

Water management in mining industry has strategic importance due to the increasing water scarcity. Water Footprint Assessment (WFA) is a systematic way that provides an assessment of sustainable water management from multiple perspectives. The main objective of this study is to analyse the water footprint of mining and processing of gold and identifying hotspots of carbon in pulp (CIP) gold processing using WFA and life cycle assessment (LCA). In this study, after determining the goal and scope, data was collected for these definitions, the process facility was designed, and the hotspots were determined after calculations were made with LCA and WFA methodologies. At the last stage, response formulations were shared. The results obtained from this research revealed that the lost return flow has the largest contribution on the blue water footprint (WF), with a value of 260.61 m3/kg Au, and the only source of the lost return flow is found to be the tailing pond. Among the indirect water footprint values, Oxygen which is used in leaching operation to increase the rate of gold dissolution has the highest value with 37.38 m3/kg. In addition, the critical component responsible from the grey WF is found to be the use of Arsenic, with a value of 1,777 m3/kg Au. Blue WF was found as 357.32 m3/kg according to LCA methodology and diesel made the highest contribution to the indirect blue WF with 12.5 m3/kg Au. Climate change human health is the most affected category in this study. The results obtained from this study could be used to make recommendations for reducing the amount of water consumed, and therefore, the negative impacts on the environment. The result of the study is expected to contribute to mineral industry by providing a systematic approach towards better water management and thus more sustainable mining.

Subject Keywords

Water footprint assessment, Life cycle assessment, Sustainable water management, Gold mining, Water consumption in gold processing

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/96718

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

Water recycling and reuse in soft drink/beverage industry: A case study for sustainable industrial water management in Turkey Alkaya, Emrah; Demirer, Göksel Niyazi (2015-11-01) The aim of this study was to investigate water conservation and reuse opportunities in a soft drink/beverage manufacturing company. Water use analysis and benchmarking were carried out to determine the areas and processes where significant water saving potential is present. Based on evaluations, water recycling and reuse practices were realized in cooling systems. As a result of applying these practices, the total specific cooling water demand of the company was reduced from 14.4 to 1.2 m(3)/m(3) product or...
Water Reuse Strategies: Iron and Steel Industry Case Study Yetiş, Ülkü (2010-09-15) Water reuse by industry is a vital part of reducing the pressure on our water. With appropriate water management that requires a comprehensive understanding of process design; industrial water can be reused for a wide range of purposes. Iron and steel manufacturing is one of the oldest industrial sectors using water in nearly every step of the process chain at large quantities. In the present study, a comprehensive effort has been allocated in a large integrated iron and steel plant in Turkey, with the goa...
Rehabilitation of water supply systems Toğrul, Nevzat; Merzi, Nuri; Department of Civil Engineering (2015) Management of water supply systems by an economic and efficient way is a significant issue for water authorities. Selection and operation of water supply elements appropriately to satisfy water need affects the energy consumption of the system. This study aims to constitute a long term rehabilitation plan for water supply elements (only storage tanks, pumps and transmission line pipes are in the scope of the study). A case study has been performed on N8.3 pressure zone of Ankara water distribution network. ...
Türkiye'de pülpte karbon altın işleme yönteminin su ayak izi değerlendirmesi Güney, E.; Demirel, Nuray (2022-01-01) The main objectives of this study are determining grey and blue water footprints and identifying the hotspots of the carbon in pulp (CIP) gold processing using water footprint assessment (WFA). Results revealed that the total blue water footprint, including the extraction and processing of the gold, was found 452.40 m3/kg Au, and the grey WF 2300.69 m3/kg Au. On the direct blue WF side the lost return flow has the largest contribution, with a value of 260.61 m3/kg Au, and the only source of the lost return ...
Rainwater harvesting system (RHS) and its applications on METU campus Kadı, Orhan Veli; Kentel Erdoğan, Elçin; Department of Civil Engineering (2022-2-10) The rainwater harvesting is a water management strategy that is becoming more and more common around the world. Due to the decrease in fresh water resources, development of rainwater harvesting systems (RHS) gain importance. This system, which is used to store the rain reaching the earth and use it to supply various types of water demands, is very easy to install. In this study, a water balance model (WBM) is run with different rain harvesting tank (RHT) sizes to find the best RHT sizes for a set of buildin...

Citation Formats

E. Güney, “Water footprint assessment of mining and processing of gold,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2022.