Guidance for Selection of Salt, Metal, Radionuclide, and other Valuable Metal Recovery Strategies

Concentrate management is one of the most divisive aspects of desalination and often influences the feasibility of a desalination project. There is increased interest in RO concentrate minimization and zero liquid discharge (ZLD). One possible strategy to recover costs from desalination and ZLD implementation is the recovery of valuable constituents in concentrate streams. While a significant amount of research has been performed on constituent extraction, there is little consensus on its feasibility at a desalination facility. The goal of this project was to examine efforts aimed at recovering materials from aqueous solutions with the goal of recovering valuable compounds from desalination brine/concentrate streams.

Originally funded as WERF project Desal-10-09.