New Cementation Process for Recovery of Metal Ions

A new cementation process has been developed at Rowan University for complete removal of targeted metal ions from a liquid. Two configurations of the cementation metal within the tubular reactor were examined. The first configuration was a well-defined geometry using a concentric single rod of cementation metal within a tube. This configuration was used to determine the reaction rate of the cementation process. The second configuration simulated an industrial reactor in which the cementation metal was randomly packed inside the tubular reactor. A reactor model was developed for both of these configurations. Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy was used to measure concentrations of targeted metals in all experiments. From these experiments, it was found that as the flow rate of liquid increased, the removal rate of metal ions from the liquid increased. For this process to be used in industry the cemented metal species need to be removed from the metal rod. It was found that at low flowrates the cemented metals stuck to the rod; but at high flowrates the metals were removed. It was also determined that the reaction rate was found to increase linearly with temperature. This process is currently being scaled-up for use in industry.