Selective recovery of critical materials in supercritical water desalination

TL;DR

This paper explores supercritical water desalination (SCWD) as a zero-liquid discharge method that not only produces freshwater but also enables the selective recovery of critical industrial materials like neodymium hydroxide from brines.

Contribution

It demonstrates the potential of SCWD for simultaneous desalination and recovery of valuable materials, expanding its application beyond water production.

Findings

SCWD can recover neodymium hydroxide from brines.

Sodium content in effluent is unaffected by other salts.

Precipitates mainly contain neodymium hydroxide with impurities.

Abstract

Supercritical water desalination (SCWD) is an alternative zero-liquid discharge desalination technique that can overcome many technical and environmental challenges in common desalination processes. Our recent techno-economic analyses on the process integration and intensification of an SCWD process suggest that SCWD can be an economically competitive zero-liquid discharge desalination technique for highly concentrated brines. In addition to these attractive features, this work explores the possibility of utilizing the SCWD process for the selective recovery of industrially essential materials as co-products. Model brines containing sodium chloride, neodymium chloride, and other sodium-containing salts, are examined as model feeds from 25 to 450 C at 25 MPa. The sodium contents in the effluent were not sensitive to the presence other salts, but that of neodymium was. When sodium acetate was added, water-insoluble precipitates were obtained. The characterization of these deposits using gas pycnometer, FT-IR, SEM/EDS, and XRD indicates that the precipitates mainly contain neodymium hydroxide and some low-concentration impurities. These results suggest that an SCWD process has the potential to recover critical materials while producing freshwater.