Monitoramento e gestão hídrica em tempo real aplicada a mineração

Abstract

Water availability is one of the main factors that sustain mining operations, requiring knowledge of the real water volume that can be extracted or discharged in its production processes. Aiming to provide the best tools to deal with water resources in mining, this work intended to develop a model for managing the amount of water available in real time for a mining complex. For this purpose, an investigation of the existing water management in a mining unit was initially carried out. After realizing that the current model could present uncertainties in the data, a methodology which describes a sequence of activities was elaborated in order to implement an automated management system for real-time monitoring. The automation tools that would make this possible were selected. Finally, in order to validate the effectiveness of the program, it was proposed to install it in an iron ore beneficiation industrial unit, taking into account the inflows and outflows for a given period. Computational resources and instruments, that identify the flows in a given period, were used to perform the mathematical calculations related to the hourly rhythms of capturing and discharging flows, allowing the accounting of data and the generation of indicators and rules for possible operational decision making. The results showed an improvement in the control of the amount of water reused and re-circulated in the processes, in addition to: reducing the displacement of employees in the field, possibility of integrating data with alert systems, generation of Key Performance Indicators (KPI's), and a reduction in the average time spent accounting for data during data closure periods. Finally, it was envisioned to expand this monitoring solution in real time to the entire Industrial Complex, thus emphasizing the importance of the results obtained with this research. Therefore, this work showed that real-time monitoring provides the possibility of a mining complex to create a detailed plan for water management and, therefore, also be able to prepare against eventual changes in the hydrological cycle. In addition, this work contributed in terms of provide tools and methodologies for evaluating, improving and integrating the instruments of the National Water Resources Policy, in addition to offering a small, medium and large business water management model.