APPLICATION OF ION-EXCHANGE RESINS FOR REMOVING SULPHATE IONS FROM ACIDIC SOLUTIONS

The removal of sulphate ions from different types of wastewater is an environmental challenge faced by several industrial sectors such as the mining, petrochemical or metallurgical industry. Most of the current existing options are inefficient and economically unviable, particularly for acid mine drainage (AMD), where the low pH and high concentrations of heavy metals and sulphates are limiting for these processes. This work is focused on ion-exchange as one of the most common treatment methods for AMD treatment. Ion-exchange represents a very powerful technology where one or more undesirable contaminants are removed from the aqueous environment by exchange with another substance. The ideal ion-exchange solution for sulphate reduction is one that combines both anionic and cationic resins. The paper presents the results from ion-exchange experiments by the synthetic ion-exchange resin and the AMBERLITE MB20 for SO 4 2– removal from a model solution. The efficiency of the AMBERLITE MB20 resin for SO 4 2– removal from the model solution H 2 SO 4 was higher than of the PUROLITE MB400, and its efficiency decreased with increasing the concentration of sulphates from 86.6 % for the concentration 100 mg/L to 66.9 % for the concertation 1000 mg/L. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ct.68.1.15004