Geothermal brines and sludges: A new resource

Conference · Sun Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1995

OSTI ID:175607

Premuzic, E T; Lin, M S; Lian, H; Miltenberger, R P ^[1]

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1. Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, NY (United States)

Development of cost efficient biochemical processes for the treatment of geothermal brines and sludges is the main thrust of a major R&D effort at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). This effort has led to the design of an environmentally acceptable, technically and economically feasible new process which converts geothermal wastes into products with significant commercial potential. These include valuable metals recovery with a metal extraction and recovery efficiency of better than 80% over short periods of time (5-25 hours). The new process also yields valuable salts, such as potassium chloride and generates high quality pigment free silica. The basic process is versatile and can, with slight modifications, be used in the treatment of hypersaline as well as low salinity brines and sludges. Concurrently traces of toxic metals, including radium are removed to levels which are within regulatory limits. The current status of the new biochemical process will be discussed in this paper.

• OSTI ID: 175607
• Report Number(s): CONF-951037--; CNN: Contract AM-35-10
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY
BRINES
EXTRACTION
GEOTHERMAL RESOURCES
GEOTHERMAL WELLS
LIQUID WASTES
METALS
RECYCLING
SLUDGES
WASTE PROCESSING