Concentration method for the mining wastewater-valorization of the copper

Abstract

During the mining process of copper exploitation, a large amount of wastewater is generated. Not only do the copper ions contaminate the water but also represent a great loss for the copper production industry. Negative charges surface of zeolite has been used for adsorption of copper. The batch and dynamic experiments have been conducted. After the adsorption, the zeolite has been regenerated with the concentrated solution of Na-salt. The volume of the regenerative solution is 30 times smaller compared to the total amount of the waste solution that has been purified and the concentation of the obtained solution is 12 gCu2+/dm3.