Evaluación del agua de perforación en la etapa de exploración inicial de minería de cobre para su reutilización con fines de reducción de consumo del recurso

Abstract

The investigation "Evaluation of drilling water in the initial exploration stage of copper mining for reuse for the purpose of reducing resource consumption" seeks to provide proposals for efficient alternatives to reduce water consumption on drilling platforms, considering that The use of water in the mining sector is high and often expensive, so it is vitally important to establish and propose treatment systems that are compatible with the environment, represent potential economic savings for mining companies, and also ensure with they comply with current and applicable regulations. The composition of the drilling water was established through analysis of physicochemical, organic and total metal parameters in samples taken from the process inlet and discharge, which allowed establishing quality indicators and comparing the state of the discharge water with compliance with the applicable regulations and with certain quality standards to propose recirculation or reuse alternatives to generate a reduction in consumption of the resource. The calculation of quality indicators showed that the parameters that require pre-treatment due to their high concentrations are: total suspended solids, chemical demand for oxygen and total metals such as chromium, for which a treatment system based on a process of sedimentation followed by coagulation-flocculation and as a tertiary treatment a phytoremediation using the plant called Water Hyacinth, due to its high properties of heavy metal accumulation in its roots.