A novel polymer inclusion membrane based method for continuous clean-up of thiocyanate from gold mine tailings water

Y Cho; RW Cattrall; SD Kolev

Journal article

A novel polymer inclusion membrane based method for continuous clean-up of thiocyanate from gold mine tailings water

Y Cho, RW Cattrall, SD Kolev

Journal of Hazardous Materials | ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV | Published : 2018

DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2017.07.069

Abstract

Thiocyanate is present in gold mine tailings waters in concentrations up to 1000 mg L−1 and this has a serious environmental impact by not allowing water reuse in the flotation of gold ore. This significantly increases the consumption of fresh water and the amount of wastewater discharged in tailings dams. At the same time thiocyanate in tailings waters often leads to groundwater contamination. A novel continuous membrane-based method for the complete clean-up of thiocyanate in concentrations as high as 1000 mg L−1 from its aqueous solutions has been developed. It employs a flat sheet polymer inclusion membrane (PIM) of composition 70 wt% PVC, 20 wt% Aliquat 336 and 10 wt% 1-tetradecanol whi..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Spas Kolev Author

Related Projects (1)

The Application of Polymer Inclusion Membranes for the Removal of Thiocyanate and Cyanide from Gold Ore Processing Wastewaters

The recovery of gold at Stawell Gold Mine can be improved by using cyanide and thiocyanate free water in the milling process. The aim of thi..

Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council

Funding Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Stawell Gold Mines and the Australian Research Council (Linkage grant LP0989449) for financial support and to Patrick Mornane and Alexander St John, both from the University of Melbourne, for critical discussion. Youngsoo Cho is grateful to the University of Melbourne for the receipt of the Albert Shimmins Writing-up Award.