Ion exchange is an attractive technology for removal of heavy metals from water and wastewaters, but it is cornmonly found to be uneconomical due to the high cost of chemicals and disposal of the brines or secondary wastes generated. Several improvements to @ technology are proposed to allow ion exchange to be more widely applied to the removal of toxic heavy metals at Superfpd sites and in other situations involving heavy metal contamination of water and ground water such as mine drainages and industrial wastewaters. The proposed technology will use an inexpensive naturally occurring ion exchange mineral which costs 10 to 30 times less Om conventional ion exchange resins. In addition, a continuous treatment system Wm be investigated which uses no chemicals for eluting the metals from the exchanger as do virtually all current ion exchange systems. It will use low level thermal driving force. Other innovations will be involved which will allow the separate recovery of concentrated single metal products.
