LIFE DEMINE project has had the commitment of demonstrating to end-users the capabilities and performance of Mining Effluent Treatment Process (METP) for treating the effluents form abandoned mining activities, as foreseen in the LIFE DEMINE Communication and Dissemination plan. Open Days have been a good opportunity to demonstrate in situ these capabilities and performance.
Open Days has been organized in Germany and in Wales. The Open Day in Schlüsselstollen (Germany) was organised by Dresden Groundwater Research Centre (DGRC) on April 29th 2022 while the Open Day in Wales (Frongoch) was done on May 26th 2022 and was organized by ELENTEC partners in collaboration with Natural Resources Wales (NRW). The main objective of the Open Days was to directly show to a wide range of stakeholders (policy makers, public administration, industrial sector, scientific community, etc) how the LIFE DEMINE pilots are working in the field and tell them the benefits of applying this technology. Moreover, with the performance of this demonstration, we obtained different inputs and opinions from the different stakeholders to obtain relevant feedback from the project results. Because visitors came from different sectors covering several levels on the problem of mining effluents, their ideas, questions and suggestions have been highly valuable for next steps of the DEMINE project such us the business development plan or the exploitation plan.
In general, there was a high interest in the technology presented, especially in the combination of the already known processes. Some of the aspects of concern among the visitors were related with energy consumption and residues. Critical questions were raised, in particular on issues of energy efficiency, the relationship between retentate and permeate, and disposal costs.
The representatives of public administration and industry showed high interest on the application and uses of the METP, since they found our technology a good technical solution to the minimize environmental risks and pollution. For example, the interest was focused on metals and coal mines treatment but across the world (e.g. New Zealand, South America, UK, Europe) and in a range of situations (i.e. active and abandoned and accessible and off-grid). Furthermore, other possible applications where discussed, For example representants of Natural Resources Wales expressed great interest in the application of the technology to farm slurry treatment and they were keen to come and see our installation at a farm site.
