Pasminco Clarksville Zinc Plant

EFFLUENT TREATMENT AT THE PASMINCO CLARKSVILLE ZINC PLANT... 

Pasminco Clarksville Zinc Plant Clarksville, Tennessee, U.S.A., 37041... 

In an electrolytic zinc plant, magnesium contained in the zinc concentrate becomes soluble and would accumulate in the electrolyte. Different techniques have been employed, such as the selective zinc precipitation process and the releaching of concentrates, to reject magnesium from the zinc circuit (2,3). The original design for magnesium control at the Pasminco Clarksville Zinc Plant was to strip the zinc content in the electrolyte from 55 g/l to about 25 g/l and then to bleed the stripped electrolyte, approximately 100 mVday, to the... 

A High Density Sludge circuit, designed to treat 2,400 m /day of plant effluent, was installed at the Pasminco Clarksville Zinc Plant in December 1981. Typical analysis of the sludge is shown in Table III. 

The current effluent treatment plant produces good quality water, acceptable for discharge under NPDES parameters, while recovering more than 1,600 tonnes of soluble zinc annually, as shown in Table IV. This represents an additional zinc recovery of about 1.5 % to the Pasminco Clarksville Zinc Plant. 

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