Fresh Water From Seawater?

[rblong2us]

im looking for something that will remove metal salts from rising mine water.
This device might develop into a solution (no pun intended ) but the concept seems to be more about dilution and concentration of ions, leaving a problem of dealing with a more concentrated salt solution.

 

[DCFusor]

Most metal salts can be caused to precipitate fairly easily by introducing another cation that converts them to insoluble form chemically. You have to add the right amount of the right thing for what you've got.

 

[rblong2us]

yes, in a lab this would be the approach but in the field we have a broad range of flow variations and metal salt concentrations, with iron mostly precipitation out naturally by naturally forming terracettes within the site. Zinc lead cadmium and copper remain in high enough concentrations to upset invertebrates in the clean stream the mine water discharges into.

Flows vary from 20 litres a sec to 2 litres.
The total loadings are higher in low flows making summer flows the bigger environmental problem.