A
slurry pipeline is used in mining to
transportTransport or transportation is the movement of people and goods from one location to another. Transport is performed by modes, such as air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline and space...
mineral concentrate from a mineral processing plant near a mine.
The concentrate of the ore is mixed with water and then pumped over a long distance to a port where it can be shipped for further processing. At the end of the pipeline, the material is separated from the
slurryA slurry is, in general, a thick suspension of solids in a liquid.-Examples of slurries:Examples of slurries include:* A mixture of water and cement to form concrete* A mixture of water, gelling agent, and oxidizers used as an explosive...
in a filter press to remove the water. Water is usually subject to a waste treatment process before disposal or return to the mine.
A
slurry pipeline is used in mining to
transportTransport or transportation is the movement of people and goods from one location to another. Transport is performed by modes, such as air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline and space...
mineral concentrate from a mineral processing plant near a mine.
Overview
The concentrate of the ore is mixed with water and then pumped over a long distance to a port where it can be shipped for further processing. At the end of the pipeline, the material is separated from the
slurryA slurry is, in general, a thick suspension of solids in a liquid.-Examples of slurries:Examples of slurries include:* A mixture of water and cement to form concrete* A mixture of water, gelling agent, and oxidizers used as an explosive...
in a filter press to remove the water. Water is usually subject to a waste treatment process before disposal or return to the mine. Slurry pipelines offer an economic advantage over railroad and much less noise disturbance to the environment, particularly when mines are in extremely remote areas.
Pipelines must be suitably engineered to resist abrasion from the solids as well as corrosion from the soil. Some of these pipelines are lined with high-density polyethylene (HDPE).
Typical materials that are transferred using slurry pipelines include
coalCoal is a readily combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock normally occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
,
copperCopper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29.It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is rather soft and malleable and a freshly-exposed surface has a pinkish or peachy color...
,
ironIron is a metallic chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. Iron is a group 8 and period 4 element and is therefore classified as a transition metal. Iron and iron alloys are by far the most common metals and the most common ferromagnetic materials in everyday use...
, and
phosphateA phosphate, an inorganic chemical, is a salt of phosphoric acid. In organic chemistry, a phosphate, or organophosphate, is an ester of phosphoric acid. Organic phosphates are important in biochemistry and biogeochemistry or ecology. Inorganic phosphates are mined to obtain phosphorus for use in...
concentrates,
limestoneLimestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the mineral calcite . The deposition of limestone strata is often a by-product and indicator of biological activity in the geologic record...
,
leadLead is a main-group element with symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal, also considered to be one of the heavy metals. Lead has a bluish-white color when freshly cut, but tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed to air...
,
zincZinc , also known as spelter, is a metallic chemical element; it has the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is the first element in group 12 of the periodic table. Zinc is, in some respects, chemically similar to magnesium, because its ion is of similar size and its only common oxidation state is +2...
,
nickelNickel is a chemical element, with the chemical symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. It is one of the four ferromagnetic elements at about room temperature, other three being iron, cobalt and gadolinium...
,
bauxiteBauxite is the most important aluminium ore. It consists largely of the minerals gibbsite Al
3, boehmite γ-AlO, and diaspore α-AlO, together with the iron oxides goethite and hematite, the clay mineral kaolinite and small amounts of anatase TiO
2...
and oil sands.
Slurry pipelines are also used to transport
tailings Tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the worthless fraction of an ore....
from a mineral processing plant after that the ore has been processed to dispose of the remaining rocks or clays.
For oil sand plants, a mixture of oil sand and water may be pumped over a long distance to release the bitumen by attrition. These pipelines are also called Hydrotransport Pipelines.
One of the longest slurry pipelines was to be the proposed ETSI pipeline, to transport coal over a distance of 1036 miles (1675 km). It was never commissioned. It is anticipated that in the next few years some long distance slurry pipelines will be constructed in Australia and South America where mineral deposits are often a few hundred kilometers away from shipping ports.
Slurry pipelines are also considered to de-silt or remove silts from deposits behind dams in man-made lakes. After the
Hurricane KatrinaHurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was the costliest hurricane, as well as one of the five deadliest, in the history of the United States...
disaster there have been proposals to pump silt to the shore and remedy the environment. Proposals have also been made to de-silt Lake Nubia-Nasser in
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
and
SudanSudan is a country in northeastern Africa. It is the largest country in Africa and in the Arab World, and tenth largest in the world by area...
by slurry pipelines as Egypt is now deprived of 95% of its
alluviumAlluvium is soil or sediments deposited by a river or other running water...
that used to come every year. These projects to remedy the environment will be very beneficial to the damage caused by large dams and man-made lakes.