Electrodialytic Remediation of Copper Mine Tailing Pulps

Abstract This work compares and evaluates nine electrodialytic laboratory remediation experiments on copper mine tailings. Experiments in the past have applied this method on moist mine tailings, but can also be applied to mine tailing-liquid mixtures. The objective of this work was the treatment of mine tailing pulps. Different parameters were analyzed, such as current density, desorbing agents, and liquid–solid ratio over non-stirred and stirred mine tailings by air suspension. The results showed that the remediation action is improved using mine tailings in pulps. As expected, stirring of the pulp favors the process performance. For 7 days remediation the best results were obtained using air stirring of the pulp, citric acid addition, a liquid/solid ratio (L/S) of 4.0 [mL/g] and a current density of 0.9 [mA/cm2] reaching a 15% removal of the total copper.