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Elands Platinum Gets New Water Treatment Plant
5 October 2007
Gauteng based engineering firm Thuthuka Group Limited (TGL) was responsible for the installation of the new water treatment plant and water management circuit at the Elands Platinum mine near Brits in the North West province that will control the delivery of both process and potable water to the mine.
As the mine is in operation 24/7, it constantly needs a ready supply of water, so controlling the plant is of the utmost importance, explains Francois le Roux, project manager at TGL.
A single PLC located in the centralised control room at the water plant controls the various aspects of the water management circuit, including the three satellite stations: the canal abstraction pump station; the barge pump station; and the settler return water pump station. Communication between the satellite stations and the control room is by virtue of telemetry or fibre optic cable.
In order to produce both process and potable water, a total of 44 motors ranging in size from 0.37 Kw to 55 Kw have been installed. All motors have full earth leakage, phase imbalance, thermal and overload protection circuits. Controlling the two trains requires some 88 control entities, including process instruments (magnetic flow meters, ultrasonic level meters, volumetric flow meters), analytical instruments (pH electrical conductivity, turbidity and a free residual chlorine dioxide) and control valves.
TGL project manager Eddie Simes explains, "The centralised control station provides for protection, control and performance monitoring. The motors are controlled by variable speed drives and starter controllers. The PLC computes all of the PID controls, which are displayed on a Scada in the control room. The control centre consists of the normal emergency stops and manual start stop, while the PLC automatically controls the satellite stations."
The majority of the process and analytical instruments were procured from Endress and Hauser and for the supply of control valves, actuators and positioners, TGL turned to Rotex Engineering.
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