Complexities of tailings management: emphasising comprehensive dewatering process design and optimisation

Over the past few decades, the mining industry has increasingly focused on mitigating the potential impacts that could arise as a result of the risk posed by tailings storage facilities. Tailings management has been a key area of focus, as previous failure events have catastrophically affected local communities as well as the environment at large. Some of the industry, including many of the major mining houses, have opted to de-risk tailings management by continuously developing and implementing alternative technologies and storage methods. This has not only reduced the associated environmental, health and safety risks, but also resulted in additional benefits such as reduced freshwater consumption. This paper presents an overview of the development of currently prevalent tailings dewatering technologies, with the aim of technically comparing these alternatives. The tailings dewatering technological landscape is further evaluated with regard to feed material characteristics, operational requirements, site-specific constraints and environmental considerations, as well as utility requirements. Considering the recent advancements in alternative tailings management methods, this paper highlights a variety of commonly applied processing approaches. Typical process designs are presented and discussed, with a strategic focus on dewatering methods and filtered tailings disposal. This paper demonstrates the complexities surrounding tailings dewatering systems, with an emphasis on presenting an approach to the design of a comprehensive dewatering solution. The upstream and downstream impacts of commonly applicable processing constraints are evaluated, as well as noteworthy design considerations and potential optimisation opportunities.