Abstract
Mineral processing wastewater contains large amounts of reagents which can lead to severe environmental problems, such as high chemical oxygen demand (COD). Inspired by the wastewater treatment in such industries as those of textiles, food, and petrochemistry, in the present work, electrocoagulation (EC) is applied for the first time to explore its feasibility in the treatment of wastewater with an initial COD of 424.29 mg/L from a Pb/Zn sulfide mineral flotation plant and its effect on water reuse. Typical parameters, such as anode materials, current density, initial pH, and additives, were characterized to evaluate the performance of the EC method. The results showed that, under optimal conditions, i.e., iron anode, pH 7.1, electrolysis time 70 min, 19.23 mA/cm2 current density, and 4.1 g/L activated carbon, the initial COD can be reduced to 72.9 mg/L, corresponding to a removal rate of 82.8%. In addition, compared with the untreated wastewater, EC-treated wastewater was found to benefit the recovery of galena and sphalerite, with galena recovery increasing from 25.01% to 36.06% and sphalerite recovery increasing from 59.99% to 65.33%. This study confirmed that EC is a promising method for the treatment and reuse of high-COD-containing wastewater in the mining industry, and it possesses great potential for wide industrial applications.
Highlights
Wastewater from mineral processing remains a headache for the mining industry because of its large volume, but more importantly, its hazardous components
Techniques for wastewater treatment have been intensively developed in the mining industry, such as natural settling, flocculating setting, chemical oxidation, adsorption, and biodegradation to remove chemical oxygen demand (COD) [2]
It is worth noting that coagulation–flocculation, the most common technique in beneficiation plants because of its economy, usually has a relative low COD removal rate of only 35% [3]
Summary
Wastewater from mineral processing remains a headache for the mining industry because of its large volume, but more importantly, its hazardous components. Direct discharge of wastewater causes serious environmental pollution, while its reuse as feed water without proper treatments causes great harm to the recovery and grade of valuable minerals [1]. To solve this problem, techniques for wastewater treatment have been intensively developed in the mining industry, such as natural settling, flocculating setting, chemical oxidation, adsorption, and biodegradation to remove COD [2]. Techniques for wastewater treatment have been intensively developed in the mining industry, such as natural settling, flocculating setting, chemical oxidation, adsorption, and biodegradation to remove COD [2] These techniques possess such disadvantages as inefficiency in COD removal, extreme operating conditions, high operation cost, huge instrument investment, etc. It is worth noting that coagulation–flocculation, the most common technique in beneficiation plants because of its economy, usually has a relative low COD removal rate of only 35% [3]
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