Enhanced Electrokinetic Removal Heavy Metals in Pyrometallurgical Zinc Slags

摘要

Ancient pyrometallurgical zinc generated large amounts of slags. Natural leaching from ancient pyrometallurgical zinc sites has contaminated the soil closed to the deposits. Electrokinetic removal technology was adopted to treat this slags. But the generation of metal hydroxide precipitation near the cathode during the electrokinetic removal process could be the most serious factor that influenced the removal rate. In this study, cation exchange membrane was used in electrokinetic removal process to overcome this major drawbacks. The final results showed that cation exchange membrane could effectively condition pH of the whole electrokinetic removal system resulted in the dissolution of the precipitated heavy metals near the cathode. In other words, the enhanced treatment have achieved positive effect to some extent. But the leak tightness of experiment setup might not be perfect. Moreover, some operation parameters of the electrokinetic removal technique must be further optimized.