Study of sulphate ions removal from acidic waters using ion exchange resin

Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) is the most common pollution related to mining. It consists of an aqueous solution containing high metals and sulphate concentration, which impact surface and groundwater and lead to serious environmental problems. Low pH and high concentrations of heavy metals and sulphates are limiting for many various treatment technologies in these acidic waters. Ion - exchange is a very powerful technology where one or more undesirable contaminants are removed from water by exchange with another non-objectionable or less objectionable substance. Many of materials for the ion - exchange treatment is available in a variety forms and have widely differing chemical and physical properties. The paper deals with study of ion - exchange process under static and dynamic conditions for sulphate removal from acidic waters using ion - exchange resin with the aim to apply the results for treatment of acid mine drainage. Two types of experiments were performed under static and dynamic conditions. The efficiency of AMBERLITE MB20 resin for SO4 2- removal from model solution H2SO4 under static conditions decreases from 86.6 % for concentration 100 mg/L to efficiency 66.9 % for concertation 1000 mg/L. The efficiency for sulphate removal from AMD was only 41%. The study also presents three experiments under dynamic conditions, one with new ion - exchange resin a two experiments with its regenerated form. It was find that ion-exchange capacity decreases numbers of regeneration steps.