MINE WASTE REIMAGINED

FLS IS PIONEERING TECHNOLOGIES AT THE NEXT FRONTIER IN MINE WASTE MANAGEMENT.

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Across the globe, miners are reexamining what waste really means. Tailings, once written off as liabilities, now hold the potential to deliver new revenue streams, critical minerals, and major environmental gains.

For more than 140 years, FLS has provided the technology, knowledge and services that empower customers to meet complex operational challenges. In recent years, many of those challenges have focused on minimising environmental impacts. FLS’s longstanding and proven legacy of innovation has enabled the company to be at the forefront of driving efficiencies while delivering sustainable outcomes.

With governments tightening regulations on tailings storage and the demand for metals accelerating, the pressure is on to extract more value from less material, while ensuring that mine operators achieve their environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals.

“Every mine has hidden value sitting in its tailings,” FLS business development manager for REFLUX technologies Anson Gilbert said.

“The challenge has always been to recover that value efficiently, safely and at a scale that makes economic sense. That’s exactly where our REFLUX technology family steps in.”

Redefining beneficiation

At the heart of FLS’s solution is the REFLUX Classifier (RC), a compact gravity separator combining a fluidised bed with a system of closely spaced inclined lamella plates. The plates accelerate the settling of dense particles while desliming and classifying fine material. The result is a sharp density-based separation with exceptional throughput. Developed in partnership with Laureate Professor Kevin Galvin at the University of Newcastle, the REFLUX Classifier family – including GradePro and the REFLUX Flotation Cell (RFC) – combines gravity separation, classification and flotation principles to recover value from fine and low-grade feeds.