Desalination, Vol.266, No.1-3, 256-262, 2011
A case study for treating a reverse osmosis brine using Eutectic Freeze Crystallization-Approaching a zero waste process
The generation of hypersaline brines emanating from industrial and mining operations poses a major environmental problem globally as the volumes of these brines increase at an exponential rate. The potential risks to the surrounding environment and water resources increase proportionally with the increased generation of these brines. The need to treat these hypersaline brines is therefore urgent. Eutectic Freeze Crystallization (EFC) provides an alternative method for the treatment of hypersaline aqueous waste streams emanating from industrial and mining operations. The process is capable of producing potable water, as well as pure salt(s), by operating at the eutectic point with lower energy consumption than evaporative crystallization. This paper describes a case study in which EFC was used to treat the liquid waste obtained from a Reverse Osmosis (RO) plant. The brine was obtained from a state-of-the-art plant, based on the HiPRO process, which at present converts 99% of a waste stream into potable water. The liquid waste (brine) from the plant is currently being disposed of in an evaporation pond. In this study, a 97% conversion of the liquid waste from the RO plant was recovered as pure water, pure calcium sulphate (98.0% purity) and pure sodium sulphate (96.4% purity). The overall estimated conversion of the waste stream generated from the RO plant to viable products was calculated to be 99.9%. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.