Decontamination of soils, Part 2

Flotation – a reliable technology in solid hazardous waste treatment

Summary: Flotation is a reliable solution for remediating contaminated soils. In the first part of the paper, published in AT 6/2013, pp. 60-72, the author gave an overview of soil wash­ing technology with reference to dedicated plants in the Netherlands, Belgium, ­Germany, ­Austria and Switzerland. Part 2 of the paper focuses on the latest research ­findings based on forward-pointing flotation tests for the recovery of metals and mercury from contaminated soils on an industrial scale.

2 Implementation of flotation in existing soil washing plants

The first application of froth flotation in a physical-chemical soil washing plant (Fig. 10) in Germany was performed by ­RICHTER, SCHMIDT ET AL. (1997) [22] in a soil treatment facility in Berlin by up-grading the existing plant with modified Fahrenwald type sub-aeration machines provided by the German vendor SKET. Using common flotation ­reagents from coal processing, several thousand metric tons of highly organically contaminated soil with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) greater than or equal to 20 000 [mg/kg DW] were...

Related articles:

Issue 06/2013

Decontamination of soils, Part 1

Flotation – a reliable technology in solid hazardous waste treatment

Typical sources for soils which are specifically defined as ‘hazardous waste’, mostly containing a broad range of contaminations coming from for example former gas works, coking plants, tar and...

more
Issue 06/2023 Responsible handling with resources

Mechanical soil washing processes and their importance for environmental protection

Soils play a crucial role in the environment. They serve as habitats for plants and animals, filter pollutants from water, and are important carbon stores. However, soils can become contaminated by...

more
Issue 09/2012

NORM / TENORM

The treatment and disposal of natural radioactive waste from the oil ­and natural gas industry – potentials and limitations, part 1

1?Introduction Waste contaminated with radioisotopes occurs in the mineral resources industries, and in conjunction with the mining of copper, nickel, gold and rare earths, in particular, and also in...

more
Issue 07-08/2017

Pneumatic flotation Application of Hybrid Flotation in the beneficiation of iron ore

1 Introduction Iron production generally follows a fixed process chain. Ore extraction in the mine is followed by the downstream processes of beneficiation, pelletizing or sintering, followed by the...

more
Issue 06/2019 High mixing quality

Economical beneficiation of tailing mounds containing ore

I?n flotation methods, e.g. for the recovery of ores, fine materials accumulate with a mineral content that for decades was too low for further beneficiation to be performed in a cost-effective...

more