Page 26 - Respond 2019 Magazine

/ New Steel Global NV.

A green future for mining:

time for change

By Gustavo Emina, CEO, New Steel

H ow a simple process can save billions of litres of water and recover what was

considered waste.

Mining industries provide most of the reducing water and energy consumption, product with a high iron ore content and a
materials on which the world relies on minimizing land disturbance and waste minimum of contaminants.
to build infrastructure and instruments production, preventing soil, water and air The iron and steel industry is the largest
of daily use. At the same time, mining pollution at mine sites. industrial source of CO2 emissions due to
is one of the human activities that have Committed to sustainable development, the energy intensity of steel production
been most disturbing to the environment New Steel has created an innovative and its reliance on carbon-based fuels.
and are linked to large social impacts. dry processing technology for iron ore
Notwithstanding, the world’s future is beneficiation. Differing from the traditional A simple way to contribute to CO2
deeply dependent on mining. reduction is using high grade iron ore,
existing processing technologies – that
Mining activities are very diverse and utilize at least one thousand litres of water in fact, using ore with 65% iron content
consumes about 12% less coking coal than
may have different ecological footprints. to process one ton of ore – this innovation using 58% iron ore, resulting in energy
Two issues, in particular, are of major and aids an extraordinary amount of iron saving, less CO2 emissions and less slag.
worldwide importance: water consumption ore recovery at competitive costs while
and mining waste. mitigating environmental impact. Reducing water consumption
Water is used in a number of applications
Mining can become more environmentally This new processing technique – with at mine sites. Traditional iron ore
sustainable by developing and integrating its patent recognized in 56 countries – is beneficiation plants using washing,
practices that reduce the environmental capable of transforming the mineral screening and jigging processes require
impact of mining operations. These exploration waste, which has a low iron large volumes of water.
practices include measures such as content, into an economically viable
Considering that the global iron ore
production in 2017 was nearly 2 billion
tons and that around 800 million tons were
beneficiated using a wet process, we can
conclude that an impressive total of 800
billion litres of water were used in the iron
ore industry, more than the annual water
consumption of Haiti, Angola, Ruanda,
Uganda, Mozambique and Ghana together.
Furthermore, by diverting surface water
and pumping groundwater, mining
operations can reduce both the quantity
and quality of water available downstream
for aquatic ecosystems and other industrial
and municipal water users, especially in
areas with arid climates.
With New Steel’s technology not a
single drop of water is used during
the beneficiation process. A simple
Results from New Steel’s process: magnetic (iron) and non-magnetic (silica) particles

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