Recovery of Water and Salt from Hyper-Saline Mine Water using Freeze Crystallization

The Freezerbacks researched, designed, and economically evaluated a full-scale freeze crystallization process as well as two alternative full-scale processes: 5 stage multiple effect evaporation and reverse osmosis. All three processes were designed to treat hyper-saline mine water that was sent into evaporation pond systems. These systems were designed for Freeport-McMoRan’s mines that need to treat impacted water. The Freeport-McMoRan copper mine in Miami, Arizona was visited in order to gain insight about the problem. The mine is no longer actively mining copper and is in the process of reclaiming land used. An essential part of restoring the land is treating impacted water that is currently being recirculated throughout the process before discharging. Current methods, evaporation ponds, are neither time nor cost effective. Ultimately, the water needs to be purified to the EPA standard of the maximum concentration level of sulfates (250 mg/L). After the feed has been processed, a waste stream will be disposed of via existing evaporation ponds. The deciding factor between the processes is the economics and total recovery. Multiple effect evaporation can be modified to recover more than 50% of water therefore reducing the footprint for the evaporation ponds. Although the heat of vaporization for water is about six times greater (40.65 kJ/mol) than the heat of fusion for water (6.02 kJ/mol), the capital cost for freeze crystallization is greater, and the process is unused on an industrial scale. Reverse osmosis will purify 50% of the water with a simpler system and cheaper overall cost. All processes are being presented as viable, with preference for the reverse osmosis. A batch bench scale system was constructed to model freeze crystallization. It was designed to process one gallon of salt solution in a single vessel. The bench scale process overall recovered 72% of the water with a final salt composition that ranges from 1.44 wt.% to 5.10 wt.%. For full-scale design purposes, 2.5 wt.% recovery was assumed. Reverse osmosis further purified the melted ice to EPA standards. A thorough evaluation was conducted by generating a full-scale economic analysis for each process, taking into consideration the advantages and disadvantages of each. Important factors taken into consideration were capital and operating costs, complexity, total recovery of water, and concentration of sulfates in the water recovered. In the freeze crystallization process, impacted water is pumped through two units in a semi-batch process where ice is formed on concentric plate coils in vessels. A total of 75% water is first recovered by crystallization and then the recovered water is passed through a reverse osmosis membrane (RO) to recover 50% of the initial brine water at environmental specifications. The net present value (NPV) after 10 years of operation is $(21.4 million) with a 50% total recovery of water. The multiple effect evaporation process is a 5-stage process in which heat from steam is used to evaporate water. This process results in a recovery of 75% pure water with a net present value of $(9.44 million). The reverse osmosis process will require two stages and a total of 21 elements. Reverse osmosis proved to be the most economical with an NPV of $(2.96 million) and a 50% purified water recovery compared to the other two processes