Efficient suspension freeze desalination of mine wastewaters to separate clean water and salts

Suspension freeze desalination is a promising technique for producing clean water from mine wastewaters. The principle is that growing ice crystals reject impurities during freezing. As a result, pure water is separated from mine wastewaters as clean ice. Actually, there is a need for improved techn...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental chemistry letters 2016-12, Vol.14 (4), p.449-454
Main Authors: Adeniyi, A., Mbaya, R. K. K., Onyango, M. S., Popoola, A. P. I., Maree, J. P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analytical Chemistry
Crystallization
Crystals
Desalination
Distilled water
Earth and Environmental Science
Ecotoxicology
Environment
Environmental Chemistry
Freezing
Geochemistry
Heat exchangers
Ice
Ice formation
Mines
Original Paper
Pollution
Sodium chloride
Sodium sulfate
Water treatment
Water yield
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Summary:Suspension freeze desalination is a promising technique for producing clean water from mine wastewaters. The principle is that growing ice crystals reject impurities during freezing. As a result, pure water is separated from mine wastewaters as clean ice. Actually, there is a need for improved techniques to increase water yield and purity. Here we tested ice formation in complex synthetic solutions during cooling and addition of seed. Solutions included: pure distilled water, 50, 33 g/L NaCl and 17, 50 g/L Na 2 SO 4 , 50 g/L NaCl and 50 g/L Na 2 SO 4 . Results show that heat of crystallization was the highest with pure distilled water at 8859 J, whereas the lowest heat of crystallization, of 4608 J, was for the solution of 50 g/L NaCl and 50 g/L Na 2 SO 4 , indicating that the presence of the salt enhances ice formation. As an application, we designed a new flow diagram, which, in addition to heat exchanger and ice filter, now includes a fluidized bed reactor for salt crystallization and recovery, and a separate heat exchanger for ice crystallization.
ISSN:1610-3653
1610-3661
DOI:10.1007/s10311-016-0562-6