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Topic: industrial NaCl waste  (Read 2816 times)

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Offline zarhym

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industrial NaCl waste
« on: July 21, 2018, 03:53:20 AM »
I am doing a literature research of industrial NaCl waste disposal.
It's NaCl solid  and some organic chemicals residue mixture from industry in the city I am staying.
The total amount of this waste is now about to reach 10,000 metric tons.

As long as the organic contamination is removed, the NaCl solid should no longer be a problem.

So, there are two options comes into my mind.

1) purge oxygen through hot salt waste in a furnace
2) electrolysis the NaCl/water slurry

Either way, the organic comtamination can be converted to carbon dioxide.

I did find some literature to support these two ideas.

I am wondering what's the common and best way to safely handle this waste in turns of financial and environmental cost.


Thanks a lot.

Offline Arkcon

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Re: industrial NaCl waste
« Reply #1 on: July 21, 2018, 07:44:21 AM »
Its a complicated question.  For example, at the production facility I worked at, upwards of thousands of liters of mixed waste was produced, in different streams.  A dilute solution of NaOH, NaCl, >70% water and methanol and acetonitrile was picked up, and distilled.  The solvents could be sold, the water released, and the salts reclaimed.

From cradle (when generated by our facility) to grave (when disposed of) its the source facilities responsibility.  Once made back into raw materials, its no longer the source facilities responsibility.  Ah, so beautiful a concept.

Here's where the crap of our world comes in.  No wants reclaimed methanol and acetonitile, these are way to cheap to produce, so they're just solvent waste.  The water needed to be tested for traces of contamination and then, treated as waste water, and then released to the environment, because no one reuses, reclaimed, distilled water -- our planet is full of it, who wants to store and bottle it?  The salts are tested and land-filled, because NaOH and NaCl are way too cheap to reclaim.

How much fossil fuel is spent to change nasty mixed aqueous solvent waste into a bunch of pure, nasty waste for disposal?  You can go ahead and calculate that.

But this is all just window dressing.  What's 10,000 metric tons of NaCl worth?  WHat's it cost to make it from sea water?  Who wants to buy it from someone who promises to have removed all the industrial waste from it?  As some close friends and relatives.
Hey, I'm not judging.  I just like to shoot straight.  I'm a man of science.

Offline wildfyr

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Re: industrial NaCl waste
« Reply #2 on: July 21, 2018, 08:11:28 AM »
Cooking the hell out of it seems like the easiest way to decontaminate it. Incineration is the most common way organic waste is disposed of.

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