Sole Proprietorship, Moscow, Russia

S. A. Bakharev, Doctor of Engineering Sciences, Professor, taf@list.ru

Mines are among the largest consumers of water, and their water treatment syst ems are among the most important process stages as the quality of recycled and waste water directly influences production efficiency and the regional environmental situation. Given the simplicity of their design and the low cost of construction and operation, horizontal settling tanks are widely used in practice. However, the gravity method of clarifying recycled and waste water is only relatively effective (at the level of 60–70%) for coarse suspended particles of +50 μm. For extracting medium-size particles +5–50 μm in size and, especially, finely dispersed particles –5 μm in size from water in such water treatment systems, it is necessary to carry out preliminary aggregation of particles using the chemical or physical methods. In the conditions of ice formation at tailings dams and settling ponds, due to freezing of the upper (to 0.6–1.2 m and more thick) and most clarified minimal content of suspended matter) layer of water, and because of the unconsolidated bottom sediments, the immediacy of the described problem intensifies additionally. In 1999, the author proposed using a complex acoustic method (CAM) to improve the quality and efficiency of clarifying large volumes of recycled and waste water. This method not only coagulates the suspended solids, but also forces them to settle to the bottom (in addition to gravity), as well as thickens and compacts the sludge, while maintaining a high productivity of the acoustic unit due to its long (hundreds of meters) acoustic range and low (no more than 5–10 W/m³) energy consumption. This article analyzes the results of many years of using the CAM method to solve the following applied problems in the regions of the Far North, Siberia, and the Far East of Russia: slowing down the ice formation process, reducing ice thickness, breaking ice, preventing freezing of underwater structures, etc. As practice has shown, in addition to the traditional advantages of the CAM method, solving these problems leads to an improvement in the quality of clarification of recycled and waste water during the ice-covered period at tailings dams and settling ponds, including in the Republic of Yakutia, where the ice thickness reaches 1.5 m or more and the ambient temperature drops to -60°C or lower.

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