Abstract

Nowadays there is a concern over the large amounts of waste generated by mining activities - typically including high heavy metal content. The present work consists of carrying out a total of 6 electrodialytic remediation experiments, considering operational variables such as duration of treatment, intensity of the applied current and application of electrical pulses. This is done in order to assess the applicability of the technique when treating soil from the former copper mining site Montecarmelo, 5th Region, Chile, which is contaminated with heavy metals. Comparing the obtained results, it could be concluded that the best electrodialytic treatment option for the soil type studied, is when applying low frequency pulses; although in this work the experiment, which had the second highest copper removal (24,7% of copper) could be considered as the best experiment with respect to copper current efficiency (2,3%).