Maximising Productivity, Minimising Impact: Choosing the Right Pumps for Efficient and Sustainable Mining

If mining companies are to boost production while keeping downtime and environmental impact to a minimum, selecting the right pumps is crucial in 2025. Beyond cost considerations, issues such as water scarcity, power consumption, and regulatory compliance are also key priorities.

Wilfried Staijen, Global Business Development Manager – Mining at Watson-Marlow Fluid Technology Solutions (WMFTS), shares insights on how the right pumps can enhance plant productivity, tackle challenges like water scarcity and high energy consumption, and reduce maintenance and pump downtime.

What challenges are mining and mineral processing companies facing in 2025?

Water availability is a major one. If you look at places like Chile, South Africa, or Australia, water scarcity is a real challenge for mining companies. In some cases, they’re pumping desalinated seawater up into the mountains or deserts where the mines are located.

A progressive cavity pump or centrifugal pump has seals inside, and those seals need continuous flushing with a lot of fresh water. That’s a big problem for mines in water-scarce regions. These pumps require clean water, not seawater, and mining companies have to treat the used water for reuse, which creates muddy conditions on-site. But if you look at peristaltic pumps like the Bredel hose pump, there’s no mechanical seal.

With peristaltic pumps, you don’t need to flush them, which saves a significant amount of fresh water. A Bredel pump can handle products with up to 80% solids, meaning the water content is far lower than what’s needed for a centrifugal pump.

Then there’s power consumption. Centrifugal pumps require 50-60% more motor power to achieve the same flow as a peristaltic pump. A peristaltic pump uses just 40-50% of the power required by a centrifugal pump. If you reduce the speed of a centrifugal pump, it moves away from its best efficiency point, increasing power consumption even further. But with a Bredel pump, lowering the speed also reduces power consumption.

Bredel pumps are far more efficient in terms of electricity use than centrifugal pumps, helping mining companies save on power and the diesel needed to generate electricity on-site.

Leakage and environmental impact are becoming increasingly important concerns. If you walk onto a mining site, you’ll see pumps leaking water, slurry, and chemical reagents.

Our pumps handle dosing efficiently, and when the tubing in a Qdos pump eventually wears out, the controller detects it, stops the pump, and prevents any chemical leaks. With a Bredel pump, any leakage is contained within the pump housing, keeping chemicals safely inside.

Reliability is another key factor. Centrifugal pumps can fail and stop delivering slurry to the analyser, whereas peristaltic pumps will keep running. I’ve seen centrifugal pumps used for sampling at mine sites, and they were leaking water, creating a hazardous situation.

Costs are always a priority. Overdosing reagents is expensive, while underdosing means losing valuable minerals and requiring extra processing steps to extract them.

Watson-Marlow cased pumps and Qdos chemical metering pumps ensure precise dosing, preventing overdosing and saving on reagent costs. Accurate dosing also minimises chemical waste, reduces effluent treatment costs, and lowers the risk of spills that could contaminate soil and water.

What are the consequences of pump failure for mining companies?

Mining runs 24/7—the ore comes in, the product goes out, and it never stops. If production halts, it’s a major issue and can take days or even weeks to get back up and running. A complete process shutdown means emptying all the tanks and vessels, draining the system, and cleaning everything.

Critical processes always have a backup line. When the primary pump fails, the standby pump takes over. But if the backup pump also fails, you’ve got a serious problem. That’s why it’s essential to get faulty pumps repaired quickly and safely, which is straightforward with Bredel pumps.

An uncontrolled breakdown can cost millions and take weeks to recover from. I once saw a competitor’s pump fail under a thickener at a mining site, flooding the entire plant with sludge and slurry. Everything had to be cleaned, and motors and equipment needed repairs—it was an expensive mess.

Why is it important for mining companies to have reliable, low-maintenance pumps?

Mining sites operate with as few staff as possible, and often, workers aren’t highly trained in maintaining equipment.

If maintenance issues aren’t caught in time, a pump could break down overnight, leaving the morning shift with an empty tank and extensive damage. With a less skilled workforce, having reliable, long-lasting equipment is essential.

How do Bredel pumps minimise environmental impact?

At Cornish Metals’ South Crofty tin mine in England, eight Bredel hose pumps are transferring sludge at the site’s water treatment plant. Three Qdos chemical metering pumps also dose hydrogen peroxide to oxidise contaminants in the mine water.

By treating the contaminated water pumped from a flooded mineshaft, Cornish Metals has significantly improved water quality in a nearby river.

What makes Bredel ideal for transferring thickener underflow at mining sites?

Concentrated mineral slurries go through a filter press, forming a filter cake that’s transported to smelters for further processing. The less water in the slurry, the smaller the filters and the smaller the filter press pumps need to be.

Increasing the solid content in thickeners means less water passes through the pump and filter, but traditional slurry pumps can only handle up to 40% solids. The Bredel hose pump, with its peristaltic design, can handle up to 80% dry matter. That means smaller filters, lower water use, and reduced filter capacity requirements.

Bredel pumps also work seamlessly with frequency controllers. Their volumetric capacity stays at 100% regardless of speed. Traditional slurry pumps struggle with frequency control, as they deviate from their best efficiency point, making them unprofitable or even ineffective.

What other key mining applications benefit from WMFTS pumps?

Slurry sampling is a big one. In flotation cells, mining companies constantly sample slurries to measure copper or gold content and ensure they have enough reagent for extraction.

These slurries contain solids, reagents, and air, and the transfer lines are often long and in harsh environments. Sometimes, a pump needs to provide positive suction of five or six metres. The line length and suction requirements vary per application.

If the process isn’t well controlled, the slurry can become more solid or viscous, requiring adjustments to reagent dosing. These changes affect pump performance, but with a Bredel pump, it doesn’t matter—it’s self-priming and can handle air, solids, and viscous products up to 16 bar. Variations in slurry consistency don’t impact a Bredel pump’s performance, even in continuous 24/7 operation.

Watson-Marlow and Qdos pumps are used for reagent dosing because they’re accurate, easy to control via VFD/PLC, and require minimal maintenance with short downtime.

Backfill is another key application. When mining companies extract minerals, the waste becomes a slurry that’s stored in a dam. Some mines mix this slurry with cement and pump it back into the mine to reinforce it.

Again, this is a high-solids application, but we’ve had great success at sites in Brazil and Scandinavia where they’re pumping tailings mixed with cement. Bredel pumps handle the job efficiently, keeping operations running smoothly and sustainably.

_________

Visit stand C2.339 at bauma 2025 at the Messe München, Munich, Germany (7 – 13 April) to learn how pumps and hoses from WMFTS can transform mining operations.

Wilfried Staijen (Global Business Development Manager – Mining at Watson-Marlow Fluid Technology Solutions) is the mining and heavy duty pump specialist for Bredel hose pumps, after joining Bredel in 1991. Wilfried has visited mining and construction sites around the world to advise on how WMFTS products can be applied to improve plant productivity.