TNG Limited (ASX: TNG), which has so far this year done deals over green hydrogen and vanadium storage batteries, has now come up with a means to avoid dumping wastewater into Darwin harbour.
A wastewater treatment plant will be added to the planned facility in Darwin that will process concentrate from the company’s Mount Peake vanadium-titanium-iron mine project in the Northern Territory.
TNG has confirmed the viability of a wastewater treatment at its planned processing plant and that it addresses local concerns in Darwin about the proposed water discharge — plus it will also reduce water demand at the plant.
The company’s plan is to build a mine and concentrate plant at the site 235km north of Alice Springs, then truck the concentrate 85km by road to connect with the Alice Springs-Darwin railway, with the concentrate then being railed to the Northern Territory capital for processing.
Mount Peake is intended to be a long-life project producing a range of high-quality, high-purity strategic materials including vanadium pentoxide, titanium dioxide pigment, and iron ore fines.
Treated water will be recycled back to plant
The proposed customised wastewater treatment plant will treat the water and then return it to the company’s Darwin Tivan processing plant, removing the need for discharge into the harbour but also reducing the plant’s water demand during processing operations.
The Mount Peake project is at present in the final stages of the front-end engineering and design (FEED) process.
The Darwin plant will process the magnetite concentrate railed from the mine into the three products listed above.
Originally, TNG had planned to discharge the treated water into the harbour.
But while the company says that plan could have been introduced and be within the environmental guidelines, it has acted in response to comments from the community and the Northern Territory government agencies.
Part of broad environmental objective
TNG managing director and chief executive officer Paul Burton says TNG decided to take the proactive step and build a treatment plant.
“This approach is consistent with our broader strategic objective of minimising our environmental impact across various aspects of the Mount Peake project and building a world-class project, which meets the highest possible standards in terms of ESG (environmental, social and government standards), environmental management and community engagement,” he added.
Earlier this year the company announced it would seek to optimise its Mount Peake project by developing carbon dioxide-neutral technology to produce green hydrogen energy in partnership with German strategic engineering company SMS Group.
TNG said SMS is advanced in its understanding of technology that allows production of hydrogen from various renewable, secondary or fossil hydrocarbon sources using plasma pyrolysis.
The German company, under a newly signed strategic partner development agreement, will coordinate the development of the process.
New vanadium battery business
Then, last month, TNG launched a new vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) business unit as part of the vertical integration strategy for its flagship Mount Peake project
This strategy further diversifies the company’s green energy interests and will capitalise on the planned production of high-purity vanadium pentoxide from Mount Peake, where pre-development planning is advanced.
VRFBs use high-purity vanadium electrolyte to store energy and support renewable power generation from sources including solar and wind.
TNG has previously produced this from vanadium pentoxide produced in pilot-scale test work.
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