Today, great emphasis has been placed on waste produced by the metals industry. Until recently, hydroxide precipitation was considered the ideal choice for handling metallurgical effluents. Metal hydroxides are stored in landfills, although they are not ultimately stable and may redissolve into groundwater with slight changes in pH. / An alternative is to adsorb dissolved metals onto stabilized silica sols ("activated silica"), which are colloidal polymers produced by acidifying silicate solutions. Metal-loaded sol may subsequently be desorbed with concentrated acid. The products are a potentially valuable concentrated metal solution and recyclable sol. / Dissolved metal adsorption with silica sols was compared with precipitation, either with lime or sodium hydroxide. Optimum adsorption and desorption conditions were determined for cobalt. Dissolved metals separation by selective adsorption was demonstrated for cobalt/copper and cobalt/iron (ferric) combinations. A cadmium ion selective electrode was used to examine the adsorption/desorption process "in situ".
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.21320 |
| Date | January 1999 |
| Creators | Rodgers, Stacey. |
| Contributors | Distin, P. A. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Engineering (Department of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001658127, proquestno: MQ50655, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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