YAZD, IRAN

CHADORMALU Industrial & Mining Complex is a great mining complex in global scale; one of the largest producers of iron ore in Iran, located in the heart of the Iranian plateau desert in Yazd province.

In recent years, the severe demand for water, along with the drought crisis, has led to the consideration of various alternatives to supply water for CHADORMALU Complex. After evaluation, the “desalination project of high-saline underground water sources” was eventually proposed to provide industrial water. The underground water reservoir (consisting of 13 deep water wells) was within a radius of 60 kilometers from the complex located in the SEPIDAN plain. The salinity of water is more than 30,000 mg/l; close to the salinity of Oman Sea’s water). The water with capacity of 43,500 m³/d is extracted, pumped, and transferred by pipelines with total length of 45 kilometers to the industrial water treatment plant, and stored in raw water reservoirs. The transferred water is treated by SWRO (Seawater Reverse Osmosis) systems and stored in product water reservoirs with total capacity of 24,000 m³/d. The treated water is transferred by pump stations through GRP transmission pipelines with a diameter of 500mm and total length of 24 kilometers for consumption inside the main factory site. The elevation difference for water pumping between the water treatment plant and the final storage at site is about 340 meters.

Design, engineering, procurement of foreign equipment, execution, installation, commissioning, and operation of pre-treatment systems, advanced treatment systems, chemical injection packages, medium and low voltage electrical systems, buildings and storage tanks, industrial control and automation systems, analyzers and instruments have been designed and implemented by skilled specialists and engineers of ABSUN PALAYESH COMPANY based on the latest global experiences and technologies.

In the next phase of project with approach of sustainable development, ABSUN PALAYESH Engineering Company has implemented brine reuse system for existing phase. This project aimed to decrease the use of available water resources, prevent the loss of brine wastewater from desalination systems, increase the recovery of plant and fulfill new industrial water demands. In this phase, brine reuse systems with feed water salinity of 45,000 mg/l (quality close to the salinity of the Persian Gulf) were designed, constructed and operated by the SWRO method to provide industrial water. Through this process, a total of 7,000 cubic meters of wastewater is reused as new industrial water instead of being discharged and wasted.

Currently, this project is one of the largest and most unique comprehensive water management projects in steel and mining industries of Iran.

SCOPE OF PROJECT:

- Equipping 13# Water Wells (43,200 m3/d)

- Raw Water PE100 - DN630 Pipeline (45 km)

- Raw Water Storage Concrete Tank (10,000 m3)

- Main SWRO Desalination Plant (21,600 m3/d)

- Brine Reuse SWRO Desalination Plant (12,960 m3/d)

- Product Water Concrete Storage Tank (10,000 m3)

- 3# Product Water Pump Stations (340m Diff. head)

- Product Water GREV - DN500 Pipeline (24 km)

- Sanitary Wastewater Treatment Plant (800 m3/d)

SUPPLEMENTARY SCOPE:

- MV/LV Transformers & MCCs

- Automation, Monitoring, Control Systems & Instrumentation

- Hydraulic Structures, Buildings & Sheds, Landscaping.

- Chemicals & Consuming Materials

SYSTEM PROCESS:

- Desalination Plant: Self-Cleaning Filtration > Micro-Filtration (Cartridge Filters) > Reverse Osmosis (SWRO with ERD system).

- Sanitary Wastewater Treatment: Screening > MLE Process