Sulphate-contaminated mining wastewater is a serious problem: it unbalances natural ecosystems and acidifies entire water cycles. However, thanks to modern electrochemical processes, these mining legacies can also be transformed from a burden into a resource.
The IKTS systems developed for this purpose feed the wastewater from mining directly into a cascade of successive electrochemical flow cells. These contain membranes and electrodes. When current is applied, the charged sulphates continue to accumulate in one direction. It is then easy to combine the sulphates with nitrogen compounds to produce high-quality ammonium sulphate fertilizer. Hydrogen is also produced as a by-product. This is considered a particularly environmentally friendly energy source and a sought-after raw material for many industrial processes. IKTS is currently testing these purification and refinement processes for mining wastewater in pilot plants such as "TERZINN" and "Rainitza". The results are very promising. The researchers therefore want to transfer these methods to a larger scale in the future.
