Remoción de metales pesados por separación magnética de alto gradiente

Abstract

This research work has carried out an analysis, selection and purification of the scientific literature related to this subject, in order to carry out a systematic and chronological study of the state of the art of high gradient magnetic separators applied to the treatment of water contaminated by heavy metals. It has been detected that, despite the existence of scientific articles reviewing the literature on magnetic separation, there are no review articles in the literature, especially in Spanish, regarding the application in the filtration of heavy metals in wastewater, in this sense, there are abundant works in the literature regarding the application of traditional filters, which have many restrictions to efficiently separate heavy metals. It has been found that, many researchers have been adding efforts to increase the field gradients because they allow to achieve a higher separation efficiency of weakly magnetic materials. The main approaches to achieve efficient high gradient magnetic separation in the area of heavy metal water treatment have been effective flocculants, metal meshes with optimal geometries, materials and arrangements, as well as powerful electromagnets using superconductors. Various actors in society, such as industries, government institutions, etc., could make use of this technology, since it is currently accessible from the technical and economic point of view for its implementation, and even for the execution of research and development projects in universities and research centres for the improvement of separation efficiency, so the study of new geometries and better materials is recommended in order to achieve higher field gradients and consequently have a better separation.