New sodium activated vermiculite process. Testing on Cu2+ removal from tailing dam waters

Dorsan S Moraes; Elizabeth M S Rodrigues; Cláudio N Lamarão; Gisele T Marques; Augusto F S Rente

doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2018.11.086

New sodium activated vermiculite process. Testing on Cu²⁺ removal from tailing dam waters

J Hazard Mater. 2019 Mar 15:366:34-38. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2018.11.086. Epub 2018 Nov 23.

Authors

Dorsan S Moraes¹, Elizabeth M S Rodrigues², Cláudio N Lamarão³, Gisele T Marques³, Augusto F S Rente³

Affiliations

¹ Instituto de Geociências, Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA), 66075-110, Belém, PA, Brazil. Electronic address: dorsan@ufpa.br.
² Instituto de Ciências Exatas e Naturais, Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA), 66075-110, Belém, PA, Brazil.
³ Instituto de Geociências, Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA), 66075-110, Belém, PA, Brazil.

PMID: 30500696
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2018.11.086

Abstract

New sodium activated vermiculite was used as Cu²⁺ adsorbent on water simulating the composition of tailing dam of a copper mine in the north region of Brazil. Starting material was vermiculite applied as thermal insulator and adsorbent of Sigma-Aldrich chemical products packs. Characterization was made by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and N₂ adsorption-desorption (77 K) to raw vermiculite (VERM) and sodium activated vermiculite (NaVERM) and SEM/EDS and FTIR to by-product metal like-xanthate. Activation process was very successful improving the Cu²⁺ adsorption in acidic medium by vermiculite from 38 to 79%. A bonus of the activation process was a production of metal like-xanthate (MEX) by hydrometallurgical leaching process.

Keywords: Adsorption; Copper; Like-xanthate; Sodium activation; Vermiculite.