Reinnolts Lab tested at diamond production in Western Yakutia

2026: Testing of Tailing Pond Mineralized Water Treatment Technology

Reinnolz has conducted pilot tests (OPI) of the technology of treatment of mineralized waters of the tailing dump after use at the production site of the Udachninsky Mining and Processing Plant (GOK) on the basis of the developed WTU-1 unit with an Exerger flash boil evaporator. Reinnolz announced this on February 16, 2026. The corresponding conclusion was received by the company from ALROSA, a diamond mining company.

The plant developed by Reinnolz allows cleaning industrial water by thermal method. The technology involves boiling water in the plant, condensing steam on heat exchange tubes and converting it into distillate - water without any impurities and salts. The distillate can be reused in production, and potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium salts suitable for further use can be isolated from the remaining concentrate (for example, gypsum or table salt can be isolated). The technology has attracted high interest from businesses that seek to use industrial water. The developed plant is characterized by low power consumption compared to similar systems, as well as maximum versatility and the ability to clean process water of any composition.

According to the obtained conclusion, the WTU-1 unit with the flash boil-up evaporator Exerger has demonstrated effective operation in real operation conditions, including permissible fluctuations in the chemical composition of the source water. It confirmed its efficiency and technical consistency to solve the problems of deep purification of highly mineralized waters.

{{quote 'Each enterprise has its own composition of process water - unique. Therefore, our engineers have developed a small pilot installation, an industrial miniature copy, which processes 1 cubic meter per hour so that potential customers can test the technology on their own site and choose the desired operating mode of the system.

The pilot plant already had a solid "tour": earlier it was tested at the water runoff of the coke chemical production of EVRAZ NTMK, at the oil production enterprise of the Komi Republic. The equipment has passed difficult tests and has proven itself well, - said Andrey Tretyakov, head of experimental industrial tests of Exerger technology at Reinnolz.}}

After testing in diamond mining, the results of pilot industrial tests were transferred to the ALROSA Scientific Center - the Yakutniproalmaz Design Institute to assess the results and prepare recommendations for implementation.

The composition of the water of the tailing pond of the Udachninsky GOK is distinguished by a unique content of sulphate and calcium impurities, with which Reinnolz had not previously worked. For example, calcium sulfate (CaSO4) - gypsum forms gypsum deposits on equipment, which can seriously slow down the process of water purification.

To solve the problem, the developers tested a special seed mode using the installation - under its conditions, calcium does not settle on the walls, but forms a suspension and, together with the concentrate, is removed from the system. During the year, this regime is planned to be improved for use on similar effluents.