Acid Rock Drainage Treatment Using Membrane Distillation: Impacts of Chemical-Free Pretreatment on Scale Formation, Pore Wetting, and Product Water Quality

Acid rock drainage (ARD) is a metal-rich wastewater that forms upon oxidation of sulfidic minerals. Although ARD impacts >12,000 miles of rivers in the U.S. and has an estimated cleanup cost of $32–$72 billion, the low pH and high metal concentrations in ARD make rapid, high volume treatment without chemical addition difficult. This research focuses on a novel method of ARD treatment, membrane distillation (MD). In MD, heated ARD is separated from a cooled distillate by a hydrophobic, water-excluding membrane. Because water only passes through the membrane in the vapor phase, nonvolatile sulfate and heavy metals are retained in the concentrate stream. A preliminary in silico analysis using an electrolyte thermodynamic model indicated that MD of 10 different mine wastes yields product water containing no contaminants at concentrations >0.2 ppm. MD tests of synthetic ARD used a ∼34 °C temperature difference, operated at 80% recovery, and produced an initial flux of 38.4 ± 1.1 L·m–2·h–1. This flux decreased slightly after scaling by iron oxyhydroxide; however, membranes maintained >99% dissolved solids rejection. Both flux decline and membrane scale formation decreased after a chemical-free, thermal precipitation pretreatment. These results indicate that MD can purify contaminated, acidic wastewater using low-grade heat sources, such as geothermal energy, without chemical addition.