HAFE water solutions technology treats water problems such as corrosion, scale, salinity and iron - all problems that impact on the efficiency and maintenance needs of mine sites.

understanding of the unique requirements of mine operations and associated processes enables us to provide specialized water systems and innovative technologies for the mining idustry. We offer tailor-made and cost-effective water management systems focusing on technical performance and compliance with process and environmental requirements, while meeting the most demanding reliability, safety, and quality standards of the mining industry. Our services range from treatability studies to conceptual design to design-build or turnkey contracts.

Solutions for mining equipment

HAFE technology treats the problems that high levels of minerals such as calcium, hardness and magnesium create for mining equipment and increases efficiency at mine sites.

HAFE technology:

• Stops scale buildup in pipelines - reducing friction loss and decreasing pumping costs
• Prevents blockage of spray bars on belting systems
• Stops scale buildup on solenoid values - no more jamming or sticking
• Stops scale buildup in pumps - no more pump failure
• Stops scale buildup in motor cooling jackets and cooling towers

Water supply and development services

Knowing the sustainability of any major operation depends on reliable and consistent water supply, HAFE offers full-cycle water supply and development services. From determining your future water requirements to turning on the taps, HAFE has your water supply and development requirements covered.

Its range of speciality water supply services includes:

• Project scoping and costing
• Strategic issues and options analysis
• Advanced exploration services
• Management of drilling and testing investigations
• Environmental impact assessment
• Statutory approvals
• Borefield design and optimisation
• Borefield performance monitoring

Civil and mining excavation dewatering

However challenging the situation, HAFE's experienced team can advise you of the most efficient and effective dewatering methods for all civil and mining excavations. The situations for which HAFE can supply such services include:

• In pit sumps, dewatering bores or horizontal seep wells
• Grout, concrete-diaphragm or clutched-steel sheet piles
• Groundwater cut-off walls
• Micro-fine grout injection
• Specific dewatering for tunnel-boring machines (TBMs)

Modular and customised mine water treatment

HAFE's AquaModular treatment plants use standard equipment, pre-engineered and pre-commissioned systems with proven performance. Benefits include reduced delivery time, site works and total cost of ownership. AquaModular is recommended for longer term solutions where flexibility in terms of capacity and feed water quality is required. Modularity and pre-engineering also allow for future or phased plant expansion. In case of feed water quality change, pre-treatment can be supplemented by other processes.The customised combination of pre-engineered AquaModular units delivers robust performance at a competitive cost (compared to custom-built plants). The construction of the units is completed prior to delivery, hence on-site work is minimised with little or no disruption to your existing facilities or processes.

AquaModular allows the process to evolve with the use of additional pre- and post treatment, should it be required to meet the ever-changing feed water qualities, reducing plant risk with life of mine or industrial site.

Water treatment operations, maintenance and technical service

With a 8-year track-record, we operate on a full day basis for more than 50 water facilities, treating or recycling approximately 20Ml/day of water and 11Ml/day of effluent across asia-pacific countries. The critical nature of such installations requires high plant availability, technical support to remote sites and performance skills transfer and development of local staff. Our proven management systems comply with ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 18001 standards.

HAFE offers a wide range of solutions to:

• Improve productivity by treating available water for specific production process requirements, to optimize mineral production efficiency and stability
• Manage environmental hazards by treating contaminated pond and underground mine water to remove heavy metals, arsenic, TDS and other contaminants for safe discharge into the environment
• Treat contaminated water to optimize water balance and maximize reuse
• Add value to the bottom line by treating and minimizing sludge streams, to remove and/or recover suspended and dissolved constituents
• Provide high-quality drinking water and wastewater treatment even on remote mining sites

Separation and filtration technologies

HAFE uses such technologies such as AquaJet® and Filtra-Lubric® to clarify the pregnant liquor in gold and silver recovery circuits. This improves the efficiency of the Merrill Crowe process, which uses a sodium cyanide solution to dissolve the precious metals followed by precipitation of the dissolved ions on metallic zinc. Both technologies are very successful in filtering the aqueous/organic/fine clay that can ultimately cause major system upsets.

Excellent effluent quality and wastewater treatment

One of HAFE' newest technologies, AquaFiltra can help produce high-quality water with low pre-treatment costs. AquaFiltra is a proprietary treatment process for desalination of acidic wastewater with high concentrations of metals and calcium salts. By combining the proprietary high-rate clarification process with filtration, reverse osmosis, and ion exchange, this unique technology generates high-quality effluent with minimum pre-treatment costs.

HAFE also offers Aquarex™ a comprehensive range of water treatment chemicals. Aquarex offers proven formulations suitable for all types of water treatment and is suitable for environmental discharge or reuse.

Evaporation and crystallization systems

Crystallization systems have processed a wide variety of specialty metals such as vanadium, tungsten, lithium, and molybdenum. Evaporation and crystallization systems can also purify alumina from the refining of bauxite (Wayer process) and recover aluminium and product salts from aluminum dross.