Metal separation from multi metallic solutions by grape stalks

Abstract

With the rapid development of various industries such as mine and metallurgy, wastewaters containing metals are directly or indirectly discharged into the environment. One of the most dangerous effluents discharged are Acid Mine Drainage (AMD), the outflows of acidic waters from metal mines. This water needs to be treated so it can be reused and the metal ions in this polluted water can be recuperated. The metals that occur in the polluted water are difficult to eliminate. To eliminate metals from the water several techniques are used such as chemical precipitation, reverse osmosis or adsorption. In previous research, it has been proven that the sorption process with grape stalks works. Each metal solution behaves differently when sorption takes place. In a metal mixture, this different sorption behaviour could be used for metal ions separation in a metal mixture solution. The purpose of this work is to separate metals from a multi metallic solution by using grape stalks. The use of sorption process to separate metals from a binary mixture of copper/nickel and cadmium/lead is studied. The sorption process takes place in fixed beds filled with grape stalks. The effect of different parameters such as initial concentration and bed length are studied. Metal concentrations are analysed by flame atomic absorption spectroscopy. The obtained results are presented as breakthrough curves. From these results, the best conditions for metal separation will be established