Minerals extraction and reuse from brines (ZLD)

Dear All,

Does anyone have information regarding the current situation of minerals extraction and reuse from brines? There is plenty of information about brine disposal but I hardly find literature regarding current plants, pilot plants or investigations going on for minerals extraction.

Regards

Benito

Taxonomy

• Treatment
• Water Treatment & Control
• Minerals Recovery

17 Answers

1. Dear Benito,

   At Salt Water we specialise in evaluating the feasibility (chemistry, technology & economics) of salt/mineral/resource recovery from brines. We undertake this via speciation/thermodynamic modelling, process modelling, bench-scale trials, pilot trials, market evaluation and design review. The key questions are:
   

   • What is the composition of your brine? This determines what salts/minerals you can recover.
     
   • What is the volume of the brine? This influences the economies of scale, process complexity etc.
     
   • What is the location of the brine? This affects the product transport costs, process type/complexity, footprint availability etc.
     

   Feel free to contact me if you have any further questions.
   

   Cheers,
   

   Matt.
   

   www.saltwatersolutions.com.au

   1 Comment

   1. Hello Matt,as a reply for your questions, the salts mainly caso4 and Na2so4 and location egypt and quantity about 22 tons per day.
      looking for your reply soon
      

      1 Comment reply

      1. Hi Tamer,
         
         [Apologies for the formatting below. There appears to be no option to improve it. Please send me an email if it is too difficult to read.]
         
         Fortunately CaSO4 (and it's different hydrate forms) is considerably less soluble than Na2SO4 at practically all temperatures. Also, as the CaSO4 hydrate form moves from monohydrate (gypsum) to anhydrous as temperature increases the solubility starts to decrease significantly at around 50C.
         Therefore a potential treatment process might entail ambient temperature or 60C solids contact clarification and then a seeded brine concentrator (CaSO4 is often seeded in evaporators to prevent fouling of HTX surfaces) to produce a CaSO4 rich stream. You may be able to replace the brine concentrator step with solar evaporation (luckily Na2CO3 solubility is at it's highest at about 40C). There may also be membrane process that could help. CaSO4 is commonly used for agricultural purposes for pH adjustment or amendment of irrigation water to prevent clay swelling (i.e. to adjust the sodium adsorption ratio). The purity requirements should not be too high for most of its uses (depending on heavy metal contaminanty you may have).
         The next step in the process would be to take the brine and crystallise it either via thermal crystallisaton (preferred for purity reasons) or pond crystallisation to produce Na2SO4. Na2SO4 is typically used for detergents. I know of a site which separates Na2SO4 from their acid battery waste and sells it on the market.
         Note that there are many other technologies which may assist. The above technologies are the most commonly used for salt crystallization but may not necessarily the best for particular scenario.
         Economics wise, CaSO4 is a cheap commodity product whereas Na2SO4 can get a reasonable price (3x sodium chloride). Other factors which will affect your economics include:- tonnages - the amount of salt you're producing is rather small- waste disposal costs - you need to compare a salt recovery option against the option where you dispose of it as waste- capital/operating costs - thermal equipment is relatively expensive but ponds (depending on the location and regulations) are cheaper. Do you have good quality waste heat?- footprint - ponds will need significant footprint- composition/impurities - What amount of the 22 tonnes is Na2SO4? What impurities are present? - location/transport options - how close is your site to the markets of the two salts? What type of transport is available and how much does it cost?- reliability- project life- etc
         I hope this helps. If you need any more assistance please do not hesitate to contact me.
         Cheers,
         Matt.
         www.saltwatersolutions.com.au
         

2. Try CryoDesalination, a freezing process that separates ice from brine without centrifuges or filters, or any mechanical means. No limits on feed or reject brine salinity and Zero Liquid Discharge is feasible. For further information, provide your affiliation, nature of interest and contact Norbert Buchsbaum, CTO CryoDesalination, LLC email: cryodesalination@comcast.net

3. When we use RO water purifier, lot of water is thrown away along with the minerals. In case it borewell water it is >50%. Will it be possible to have an attachment with the Ro water purifier, to extract more pure water and/ or the minerals.; scan it be possible to separate minerals for other commercial use?.

4. All caustic chlorine plants take sea water separate pure sodium chloride brine for conversion to caustic,chlorine and hydrogen.

5. Although minerals recovery from brines of various types has been done for a long time, as others have pointed out the economics and marketability of solids derived from water purification can be quite variable. As a result, all of the ZLD users I am familiar with truck their crystallized waste to a disposal facility. You might check with the ZLD Users Group and see how others have tackled this issue. http://zld.users-groups.com/

6. MINERAL EXTRACTION FROM BRINES
   
   

   The Dead Sea Works has been doing it for 50 + years. Not rocket science.

7. brine reuse.
   
   

   All brines are nutrients. Their ph / concentration is the area in question of how to be used/reused.  Adding the Archaea species to a given agricultural situation with the appropriate amount of water dilution will turn any brine into a well balanced nutrient base for any and all agricultural uses.  Special plant types consume excess amount of brine in an agricultural soil restoration project.    This technology is more than 50 years old. Sea nutrients are now being sold in dry or liquid form to enhance poor soils.  Brine is free fertilizer for those that have it on their land.  Nature already has the solution.

8. 50+ years of Recovery in the Mining Industry
   
   

   Benito,

   The mining industry has been doing this for decades.  Look for information on zinc recovery from Salton Sea, boron from Southern California, lithium from Bolivia, potassium from Argentina.  Almost all the lithium currently in all the lithium batteries in the world was recovered from brines.  As the other posters note, it’s all about the economics and the undesirable side reactions trying to separate saleable commodities.  Look to the literature on Economic Geology and you will find many papers on the process chemistry and economics of extractions from brines.  The most important point to remember is that just like an ore body, the product to be recovered and the process to do it is entirely dependent on the brine-specific chemistry.  While the thermodynamics may be transferrable from site to site, economics and side reactions will always be highly variable.

   Cheers,

   Greg

9. Techno-Economic feasibility of extracting minerals from desalination brines
   
   

   Mashallah Ali-Ahyaie
   29 May 2015 at 09:53

   HELLO BENITO,

    I WONDER IF THE FOLLOWING LINK COULD BE OF ANY HELP, AS A START; PLEASE KINDLY FEEDBACK:
    ===============
   http://www.researchgate.net/publication/222363496_Techno-Economic_feasib...
    ===============
     Article

    Techno-Economic feasibility of extracting minerals from desalination brines

    Ibrahim Al-Mutaz

    Kamil M. Wagiall
    ==============
     BEST REGARDS,
    MASHALLAH ALI-AHYAIE

10. HELLO BENITO, I WONDER IF THE FOLLOWING LINK COULD BE OF ANY HELP, AS A START; PLEASE KINDLY FEEDBACK: =============== http://www.researchgate.net/publication/222363496_Techno-Economic_feasibility_of_extracting_minerals_from_desalination_brines =============== Article Techno-Economic feasibility of extracting minerals from desalination brines Ibrahim Al-Mutaz Kamil M. Wagiall ============== BEST REGARDS, MASHALLAH

11. Several researches and field work were done to recover minerals, while economics didn't work. The exclusions are few places where the oversaturated brine is harvested to recover ultra pure minerals of high cost for the niche industries.

12. Re: mineral extraction from brines
    
    

    My company- LIghthouse Utility Solutions, Inc. has previously developed an ultra-high efficiency co-generation system that operates with virtually any gaseous or liquid fuel and produces near-potable water from the condensed exhaust. This system is used as the thermal source for another recently developed (and soon to be prototyped) system we call SaveYore that evaporates "dirty" water and condenses it into distilled water. The system can treat "frac" water, sea water or sanitary waste water (or any other "brine" or "dirty" water source).  

    For "frac" and sea water, the system removes ALL the water- leaving the chemicals/minerals left from "frac" water and sea salt from sea water. Sanitary waste water is turned into a thick slurry that is fed to an anaerobic digester to produce methane to off-set some of the generator's fuel requirement before it is returned to the input flow for further water removal.

    The system processes 27,500 GPD (105,500 LPD) of "dirty" water and produces 31,500 GPD (120,000 LPD) of distilled water (because of the added flow of condensed water) per MW of power produced. The "standard" package is rated for 2 MW of power (which can be paralleled for higher power or water output) but systems are available as low as 250 kW or even smaller if needed. Systems are available for "fixed" installations or mobile for periodically treating "dirty" water at several sites.

13. After waste water treatment we can extract minerals.because not only minerals present in to the brine water there are so many other impurities present in to the waste water. re use is possible but it is very costly process.

14. Mineral extraction
    
    

    Dear Benito,

    This is an area that is on the cutting edge of research.  As noted in the other comments, a cost effective method has yet to be found.

    I am working on mineral extraction processes in conjunction with my development of a new type of desalinization process.  A pilot plant operation is in the process of design which will concentrate minerals, precious and rare earth metals are the targeted species at the moment, to levels equal or above the ore concentrations found by conventional mining methods.  If successful, the unit would be made available for mineral extraction from brine.

    Best regards,

    John

15. Hi Alejandro, yes that is the point extracting the minerals from the brine of desalination plants and use them for future applications. As far as I have read, it is more cost effective to extract the minerals from other traditional sources rather than from desalination plants. So I was wondering how is the technology developing in this market. I know there are crystallizers, evaporators and other systems to treat waste water streams for minerals recovery but for desalination systems I do not find much

16. Dear Benito: What I think you want to know is the possibility of extracting minerals from the brine (rejected water) to a future use of them. Unfortunately, I don`t know any method to extract miinerals from it. I consider a better solution to extract them straightforwardly from the sea rather than doing it from brine. Please, let me know if I have solved your doubt. Thanks very much in advance. Best regards

17. With a RO systems you stripped water to 0% minerals, only Hydrogen and Oxygen ... after that you can mineralize the same ammount of water with a specific minerals according to your needs ...