CHEMICAL AND WATER PUMPS SUPPORT NICKEL EXTRACTION PROJECT

MINING OPERATIONS CREATE A considerable amount of crude waste streams from their extraction operations. If purified, those streams can yield valuable minerals. Built to take advantage of the opportunity, the Thakadu Nickel Purification Plant produces 2,500 tons per month of high-purity, battery-grade nickel sulphate from a crude nickel sulphate stream. The plant utilises a process called nickel crystallisation. A crude nickel sulphate stream is pumped to the purification plant, where it is heated and evaporated into a vacuum, forming nickel sulphate crystals for harvesting.

Such purification is a highly intensive and precise process requiring the careful balancing of components and energy requirements to accomplish the purification safely and profitably. To help enable the plant’s vision, Xylem provided 102 pumps from different brands within its stable along with pump selection and engineering services to align the right choices.

Though the initial focus was on pumps for the water process, that scope expanded to include pumps for the plant’s chemical processes. Xylem’s in-house application engineers collaborated with the project’s leaders to consider numerous variables that influence selecting pumps for the site. These included severe space constraints, limited power restrictions, appropriate pricing to ensure the project’s profitability, and managing liquids in various aggressive states.

The pumps chosen for the project included 42 Lowara Vogel LSB SS316 block pumps suited to moving high volumes of slightly contaminated fluids, 12 Lowara ESHS centrifugal end-suction pumps, a single impeller centrifugal pump made in AISI 316 stainless steel, which is ideal for moving water and aggressive liquids, 39 Lowara e-SV stainless steel vertical multistage pumps – highly reliable and technologically advanced multipurpose pumps – and nine Lowara DOC7 submersible pumps which are corrosion-resistant and compact, suited to pumping clean and dirty water.