Water management system for ore mining operation

A process of extracting a mineral from an ore, the process comprising:

• treating a saline source to reduce a first concentration of one or more multivalent ions dissolved in the saline source by a first treatment process including nanofiltration to produce a treated saline water having a second concentration of dissolved monovalent salts of at least 0.5 wt %;
• performing a first mineral recovery process that includes using a first volume of the treated saline water as a process water in a flotation operation to extract the mineral from a portion of the ore to form a tailings stream,
• performing a consolidation process that includes applying a second volume of the treated saline water to the tailings stream;
• dosing the tailings stream with a polymer flocculant to form a treated tailings stream, wherein the treated tailings stream has a third concentration of the dissolved monovalent salts of 0.5 wt % or more, wherein a dose of the polymer flocculant in the treated tailings stream is not less than 0.005 wt %, and wherein the dose of the polymer flocculant is a weight of the polymer flocculant to a weight of solids in the tailings stream;
• performing a liquid-solid separation operation to form a recovered water and a consolidated solid;
• purifying at least a first portion of the recovered water by a second treatment process to reduce a fourth concentration of the one or more multivalent ions in the recovered water to no more than 200 ppm in the purified recovered water, mixing the purified recovered water with the recovered water to form a mixed fluid, and cycling the mixed fluid to the flotation operation;
• and
• performing a second mineral recovery process that includes using the recovered water as the process water,
• wherein the saline source comprises seawater,
• wherein the saline source is treated at at least 30 m3/hr,
• wherein the polymer flocculant includes one or more selected from the group consisting of (a) polyacrylamide, (b) a polyamine, (c) a polyethyleneimine, (d) a polydicyandiamide, (e) a polyamide-co-amine, (f) a polyethylene oxide, and a copolymer of any of (a)-(f),
• wherein the one or more multivalent ions include calcium ions and magnesium ions,
• wherein the dissolved monovalent salts include sodium ions and chloride ions, and
• wherein the use of the treated saline water in the flotation operation improved yields of recovered mineral by 1% to 4% higher relative to use of untreated seawater.