Separation and Fixation of Toxic Components in Salt Brines Using a Water-Based Process

Journal Article · Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2004 · Journal of Undergraduate Research

OSTI ID:1051670

Franks, C; Quach, A; Birnie, III, D; Ela, W; Saez, A E; Zelinski, B; Smith, H; Smith, G

Efforts to implement new water quality standards, increase water reuse and reclamation, and minimize the cost of waste storage motivate the development of new processes for stabilizing wastewater residuals that minimize waste volume, water content and the long-term environmental risk from related by-products. This work explores the use of an aqueous-based emulsion process to create an epoxy/rubber matrix for separating and encapsulating waste components from salt laden, arsenic contaminated, amorphous iron hydrate sludges. Such sludges are generated from conventional water purification precipitation/adsorption processes, used to convert aqueous brine streams to semi-solid waste streams, such as ion exchange/membrane separation, and from other precipitative heavy metal removal operations. In this study, epoxy and polystyrene butadiene (PSB) rubber emulsions are mixed together and then combined with a surrogate sludge. The surrogate sludge consists of amorphous iron hydrate with 1 part arsenic fixed to the surface of the hydrate per 10 parts iron mixed with sodium nitrate and chloride salts and water. The resulting emulsion is cured and dried at 80 °C to remove water. Microstructure characterization by electron microscopy confirms that the epoxy/PSB matrix surrounds and encapsulates the arsenic laden amorphous iron hydrate phase while allowing the salt to migrate to internal and external surfaces of the sample. Salt extraction studies indicate that the porous nature of the resulting matrix promotes the separation and removal of as much as 90% of the original salt content in only one hour. Long term leaching studies based on the use of the infinite slab diffusion model reveal no evidence of iron migration or, by inference, arsenic migration, and demonstrate that the diffusion coefficients of the unextracted salt yield leachability indices within regulations for non-hazardous landfill disposal. Because salt is the most mobile species, it is inferred that arsenic leaches from the host material at an even slower rate, making the waste forms amenable to unregulated land disposal options. These results indicate that the environmentally-benign, water-based emulsion processing of epoxy/PSB polymeric hosts show great promise as a separation and fixation technology for treating brine streams from wastewater treatment facilities.

• Research Organization: DOESC (USDOE Office of Science (SC) (United States))
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• OSTI ID: 1051670
• Journal Information: Journal of Undergraduate Research, Vol. 4
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English