Metal Recovery from Imperial Valley Hypersaline Brine
- Key words
- Brine Technology; USA; California; Imperial; Salton Sea; Fluids; Brine; Chemical Composition; Economics; Mineralization
- Location
- Salton Sea, California; Imperial Valley
- Conference
- Geothermal Resources Council Transactions
- Year
- 1985
- Session
- Direct use; Mineral extraction; Economics
- Language
- English
Abstract
The Imperial Valley of California is rich in geothermal resources. A highly saline (hypersaline) brine containing 20-25 wt% dissolved solids lies under the area near the Salton Sea. This brine can be exploited for electric power production and for metal recovery. A short review of the technology used for electricity generation is presented. The criteria for evaluating target metals an process routes for by product recovery are reviewed. We show that solvent extraction technology can be used to recover zinc from this hypersaline brine resource. And we present experimental work on the development of a reagent formulation capable of selectively recovering 80-90% of the zinc from post flash brine. This represents a yearly market value of about 10 million dollars for the zinc removed from the effluent of a 50MW power plant.
Copyright 1985, Geothermal Resources Council. Readers who download papers from this site should honour the copyright of the original authors, and may not copy or distribute the work further without the permission of the original publisher.