Treatment Methods for Antimony Containing Wastewater

Antimony containing wastewater treatment: Antimony is a non renewable metal, and antimony and its compounds are widely used in various industrial fields. Antimony is not an essential element for living organisms and has accumulated toxicity and carcinogenicity.

China's antimony reserves account for 66.2% of the world's total reserves. In 2010, China's antimony production (187400 tons) accounted for 89.3% of the world's total production. The antimony containing wastewater in China mainly comes from the processes of antimony mining, selection, and smelting.

In response to the requirements for the discharge and treatment of antimony containing industrial wastewater, Haipu has conducted research on the treatment methods of antimony containing wastewater. Experiments and actual operations have shown that using the polymeric ferric sulfate method to treat antimony containing wastewater in this project can achieve a effluent concentration of Sb ≤ 0.05mg/L, far below the emission limit requirement of Sb ≤ 0.3mg/L in the "Emission Standards for Industrial Pollutants of Tin, Antimony, and Mercury" (GB30770-2014).

The existing antimony removal processes for wastewater mainly include precipitation method. Flocculation precipitation is the process of particle sedimentation in water. After adding coagulants to the water, the colloids and dispersed particles of suspended solids form flocs under the interaction of molecular forces, and they collide and aggregate with each other during the sedimentation process. Their size and mass continue to increase, and the sedimentation rate continues to increase.

Antimony in wastewater mainly exists in the forms of antimony disulfide, antimony trioxide, and antimonate. By coagulation precipitation, antimony in water can be removed through adsorption and co precipitation after coagulation.

Polyferric sulfate is a non-toxic and efficient inorganic polymer flocculant with excellent flocculation performance, fast sedimentation rate, and high compactness of the produced flocs. It is suitable for water bodies with pH ranging from 4.0 to 11.0 and is widely used in sewage flocculation treatment processes.

Haipu Craft

The wastewater antimony removal and adsorption process developed by Haipu functional materials removes the vast majority of antimony in the wastewater through adsorption, and the adsorbed water meets the requirements for subsequent discharge or reuse.

When using Haipu's adsorption process for antimony containing wastewater, the wastewater is pre filtered to remove suspended and particulate matter, and then enters the adsorption tower for adsorption. The special adsorption material filled in the adsorption tower can adsorb antimony in the wastewater on the surface of the material, significantly reducing the antimony concentration in the effluent.

After adsorption saturation, specific desorption agents are used to desorb the adsorbent material, allowing it to regenerate. This process is continuously repeated, and the antimony removal adsorption treatment process for wastewater is shown in the following figure.

Figure 1 Process diagram for antimony removal from wastewater

Case

This newly built wastewater antimony adsorption treatment facility has a total designed wastewater treatment capacity of 100m ³/d. Haipu has customized the process design for this wastewater, and the wastewater design indicators are shown in the table below.

Table 1 Wastewater Design Parameters Table

Advantages of adsorption method

1. Deep removal of antimony from wastewater can ensure that the effluent meets the discharge standards or meets the operational requirements of subsequent processes;

2. Using specially modified adsorption materials, with large adsorption capacity, low equipment investment, and low operating costs;

3. The process flow is simple and can achieve full automation operation, making operation and maintenance convenient;

4. It can be arranged in multiple layers, with a small footprint and a short installation cycle.