In
the present work, the water recovery and concentration of H2SO4 and metals from a copper mining effluent by
membrane distillation was studied. The performance of the direct contact
membrane distillation was analyzed by estimating the water flux, the
water recovery, and the concentration factor for acid and metals,
taking into account the structural properties of the membrane, transport
phenomena, and the most sensitive process parameters, with the objective
to determine the feasibility of the process. The results show that,
with increasing temperature gradient, the transmembrane flux improves,
that the solution concentration has a negligible effect, and that
there is a proportional relation between vapor pressure and flux.
Considering a feed temperature of 60 °C and coolant inlet temperature
of 20 °C, for the aqueous acid solutions formed by copper sulfate
after 5 h, a concentration factor of 1.4 was obtained and, for the
synthetic effluents, the concentration factor after 10 h was 1.65
(water recovery of 40%). Of all the membranes tested, a laminated
polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) membrane with a nominal pore size
of 0.2 μm had the best performance. A model that includes the
Pitzer equation to determine the vapor pressure of the solutions was
developed to analyze the experimental tests and predict the flux;
the model reproduces the experimental data with a maximum deviation
of 7%. The feasibility for separation of acid and copper from concentrated
mining effluents (rich in copper) by membrane distillation was analyzed
through a conceptual process design; this analysis determined that
it is possible to recover acid and copper by solvent extraction after
three stages of membrane distillation. The total cost estimated (0.739
$·m–3) proves that the process is competitive
with other desalination methods.