Hombre Muerto Salar, Salta, Argentina
| Challenge: | The site's high altitude presents numerous technical and logistical challenges. |
| Solution: | Our team applied a triple-stack module configuration for building out evaporator and crystallizer systems. |
| Result: | Aquatech's partnership on Rio Tinto's Hombre Muerto Salar project shortened overall delivery time, and lowered initial cost. |
Any project, any purity spec, any place: Rio Tinto’s Hombre Muerto project, which sits over 4,000 metres above sea level, is no exception. Built and piloted in Aquatech’s manufacturing facility in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, a triple-stack module configuration allowing for seamless technology installation that reduces on-site fabrication, improves safety and quality, and accelerates commissioning.
Challenge
To purify and concentration the Hombre Muerto project's already highly-concentrated brine resource without relying on evaporation ponds. The site’s high altitude presents numerous technical and logistical challenges, including completing site installation with limited resources, removing contaminants from the lithium brine source, maximizing lithium recovery, and recovering distillate from thermal processes.
Solution
Aquatech's modular approach offers a solution for the site's remote location and high altitude, while also accelerating project delivery and reducing CAPEX and OPEX. Our team applied a triple-stack module configuration for building out evaporator and crystallizer systems. This includes factory-installed equipment such as pumps, piping, values, insulation and instrumentation, as well as structural steel frames designed for lift-and-place at site. Junction boxes were pre-wired at Aquatech’s manufacturing facility.
Aquatech conducted extensive piloting and testing, which identified suitable flow speeds for the system to work efficiently.
Result
Aquatech’s process technology solution at Rio Tinto’s Hombre Muerto Salar project delivers a lithium-rich brine at 6% concentration. Our modular approach shortened overall delivery time thanks to a 50% reduction in site installation time (16 months total) and lowered intial cost for client. Plug-and-play systems, designed to handle variable brine quality, were also transported in a mode suitable for South America’s infrastructure, enabling final commissioning to commence.