Is it possible to achieve complete Environmental, Social and Governance without compromising the capex and opex of your projects?
A West Australian company is utilising technology to achieve ESG, while at the same time improving the bottom line. It sounds too good to be true, but OLEOLOGY has proven that it’s entirely possible, across mining, oil and gas, and now exploring industries such as agriculture. Importantly, OLEOLOGY can achieve this without cutting corners.
Using Western Australia’s very own expertise and technology, companies are able to not only be compliant, but also treat to achieve environmental discharge at lower operating costs, with the added scope of significantly lowering carbon footprint, while simultaneously opening up the ability to recycle water.
Water treatment
OLEOLOGY is able to reduce a company’s carbon footprint, via its equipment, and significantly reduce what is being released into the atmosphere.
For the past 20 years, OLEOLOGY has utilised MyCelx technology. The company has taken the basic technology – which was originally developed for oil and gas industry water treatment – and adapted it to mine site applications, and further developed the process for the treatment of PFAS (perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances) which has typically been known as an expensive contaminant to treat.
The beauty of the MyCelx compound is that it is infused into a water-filtering media, and is non-leaching, non-toxic media capable of holding many times its own mass in oil, organics, metals (and PFAS if required) so water can be filtered at a very high flow rate from a very small footprint.
Only one pump is required to run the whole system, thus alleviating high power consumption and running costs, a standard treatment system can operate between 3-5kW.
Safe waste disposal
With most mines being in relatively isolated locations, how do you deal with waste in a compliant manner, to meet audit requirements?
If required to truck waste off site, then the goal should be to minimise waste, make it easy to handle and move. Moving liquid waste in a 10,000-litre tank is extremely costly, and higher risk to move.
Ideally, water should be treated in a way that creates the minimal volume, so it can be safely transported via road train or flatbed. OLEOLOGY exceeded this capability to create a dry waste and in some cases have only generated a pallet of waste after 18 months of operation.
The key to utlising a non toxic and non leaching media is that no chemicals are added to the water stream; MyCelx remains as a fixed chemistry in the filter The filtration media is also hydrophobic (repels water) and thus reducing excess waste water.
A sustainable, cost-effective solution
OLEOLOGY’s MyCelx solution for PFAS removal is ideal for operations in isolated areas, where it is not feasible to generate large amounts of waste, especially liquid or sludge wastes, which are difficult to store, treat and transport.
Used MyCelx cartridges (1/20th of the volume compared to standard treatment methods) can be transported for disposal, as opposed to contaminated liquids or sludge. The treatment system is full assembled as a containerised plant (or skid mounted) with a much smaller footprint than that of conventional systems, using much less power as the pressure drop across the entire plants only requires a single, centrifugal pump.
MyCelx can also be operated remotely and needs very little in-person attendance, lowering operating costs and allowing for scheduled maintenance.
