TunnelMATE® & TunnelMAX®
Environmental water treatment systems for Groundwater, Construction Site Water and Mining Operations designed for discharge to the Environment, Reuse or Sewer
Hydroflux Industrial has extensive experience in treating water generated from excavation, tunnelling, drilling and mine sites. We can provide treatment systems that meet the type of water generated by your operations and understand that each different application produces a unique set of water characteristics.
These waters often have contaminants that need to be properly treated such as hydrocarbons, PFAS and heavy metals to name a few. We have a solution for each of these scenarios that can be easily configured to meet your needs.
Find out more
Focus on Footprint
As our major cities move toward higher and higher population densities, space for infrastructure projects becomes more complex to obtain. This complexity relates to land costs, stake-holder and community buy in as well as environmental challenges generated by the construction works. As such, there is an ever increasing demand on contractors to operate from “postage stamp” sites.
This results in very little space available for water treatment systems. To complicate matters, water treatment systems are now expected to reach tighter discharge limits, as the traditional “Blue Book Values” are replaced by ANZECC Water quality guidelines.
Overall, this means water treatment plants are expected to achieve more, often in footprints less than 100 – 150m2.
The TunnelMAX® is a surface mounted modular treatment system designed to accommodate high solids loads if they occur and otherwise treat the water to a high quality for discharge – providing a compact, robust treatment-and-dewatering process in one system.
The system has been designed for automation, reliability and minimal operator input and can be configured for 2 – 50m3/hr of water treatment. TunnelMAX® can be adapted to include additional filtration steps to target removal of metals, hydrocarbons, PFAS or other substances which can be present in the surrounding ground water table.
Selection is site specific depending upon intended tunnelling methods, geology and groundwater infiltration rates – contact Hydroflux® for assistance in selecting a system to suit your needs.
Start with Solids at the Source Below Ground
Removing water from the tunnel sounds simple enough. However, within the tunnel the problem becomes the solids within the water rather than the water itself.
Once at the surface, these solids choke the water treatment process preventing off-site discharge occurring fast enough to keep ahead of the water building up in the tunnel.
Rather than moving these solids with the water and coping with the issues that arise, removing the solids from the water within the tunnel and at the source protects the downstream processes and saves on wear and tear, power and labour. It also reduces the cost to transport the dewatered solids, as they can be easily removed with other spoil material.
The TunnelMATE® is a skid-mounted system that can be deployed into the tunnel to remove solids from waters streams and produce a dry and spadable cake – reducing labour, pumping energy, and pump wear and tear.
The system has been designed for automation, reliability and minimal operator input and can be configured to handle 50 – 500 kg/hr of dry solids.
Depending on the location of the treatment plant and dissolved solids content in the groundwater, sewer discharge of treated water may not always be an option for many tunnelling sites.
For systems discharging to storm water, strict discharge quality targets, often relating to the ANZECC guidelines must be adhered to. As part of our standard offer for storm water discharge systems, Hydroflux incorporate a filtration plant that is designed to target specific contaminants and provide a physical barrier to prevent suspended solids escaping from the water treatment plant.
The treated water quality from the filtration plant is also suitable for reuse within the site. Reuse options range from toilet flushing, dust suppression right through to use on the cutter heads of TBM’s and road headers.
Some benefits of the Hydroflux TunnelMAX™ filtration solutions include:
• Wide Range of technologies to accommodate different water quality requirements, including Multimedia Filtration, Ultrafiltration & Reverse Osmosis
• Standard Filtration system (Multimedia) designed for high pressure operation encountered on Tunnel water treatment systems
• Manganese Greensand Media can be incorporated for enhanced oxidation and removal of Iron, Manganese, Arsenic and other heavy metals to ppb levels.
• Dedicated backwash & Air scour lines to enhance cleaning of media
• Dedicated control valves for plant operation, no multiport heads with frequent failure rates and long replacement lead times
• Easy maintenance access within the TunnelMAX™ control container, including side access manway
