Electrodialytic remediation of copper mine tailings with sinusoidal electric field

In this work an electrodialytic remediation cell for copper mine tailings using sinusoidal electric field was analyzed, in order to increase the removal efficiency. The sinusoidal electric field was obtained by applying simultaneously continuous-alternating voltages; in this work an alternating voltage of low frequency was applied. The system was tested considering the effect of: (1) the effective voltage applied to the cell, (2) the period for the alternating voltage, (3) remediation time, and (4) copper complexing capacity of citric acid. According to the conditions studied in this investigation, the laboratory results showed that decreasing the effective voltage improves the remediation action, due to polarity reversal of the system, which reduces polarization during the process, but in terms of the period for the alternating voltage there is no effect. As expected the remediation time and copper complexing capacity of citric acid improves the amount of remediated material and the remediation action in general.