Concentration and precipitation of NaCl and KCl from salt cake leach solutions by electrodialysis

摘要

Electrodialysis was investigated for cost-effective recovery of salt from salt cake leach solutions. (Salt cake is a waste stream generated by the aluminum industry during treatment of aluminum drosses and scrap.) We used a pilot-scale electrodialysis stack of 5 membrane pairs, each with an effective area of 0.02 m(sup 2). The diluate stream contained synthetic NaCl, KCl,mixtures of NaCl and KCl, and actual salt cake leach solutions (mainly NaCl and KCl, with small amounts of MgCl(sub 2)). We concentrated and precipitated NaCl and KCl salts from the concentrate steam when the initial diluate stream concentration was 21.5 to 28.8 wt% NaCl and KCl. We found that water transferring through the membranes was a significant factor in overall efficiency of salt recovery by electrodialysis.