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Lang Lang Slimes Treatment Plant brings industry advances.
The production of concrete for use in infrastructure projects for commercial, residential and industrial applications needs to be of high quality to withstand harsh environmental conditions and stresses.
The sand component used in Pronto Concrete is sourced and processed in Lang Lang at the Barro Group’s, Mountain View Quarries operation, located less than 100km southeast of Melbourne.
Quarried and processed in the region, the byproducts of processing: clay, silt and water are removed, leaving the sand for Pronto’s Concrete products.
The washing plant has been in operation for almost four years, and the Barro slimes facility for 12 months representing the latest technology, greatest capacity and environmental standards to date.
Designed in conjunction with sand consultant, Stewart Young, key considerations included a full appraisal of the silts and clays in the sand to determine flow behaviour; throughput required; water quality and environmental considerations and the appropriate press selection for water removal.
Clive Thomas, Site Manager for Barro Group who has been in the industry for decades says the sand wash plant idea came from a rough drawing to establish the quarry, with the view that a slimes management plant would eventually be needed.
“The output from the quarry means that we needed a slimes facility that was capable of moving 500 tonne/day of concrete sand, so the plant would need to be pretty substantial,” says Clive.
“The washing process cleans out the fine clay silts, which in days gone by would have gone into silt dams, but they fill too quickly and you have no fresh water for the plant. Industry water usage used to be up around 200 litres/second, but this plant is now down to 60 litres/s with the new design.”
About 90 per cent of the water is recycled back into the plant for washing and grey water uses such as washing down vehicles. To bring the pH levels to neutral for discharge back into the dams, sodium hydroxide is added, which also acts as a flocculant.
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