• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.109-112
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• 2022

Lime has been used for the neutralization of acidic waste because it is cheap and available in large quantities. The resulting sludge often contains a considerable amount of unreacted lime due to alkali overdosing, even during automatic neutralization processes, which mainly arises from the poor solubility of lime. The sludge cake from lime neutralization of Ilkwang Mine also contained high percentages of calcium and magnesium. The elemental content of the sludge cake was compared with those obtained from a simulation of the lime neutralization facility installed at Ilkwang Mine. A Goldsim^® model estimated the degree of lime overdosing to be 19.1% based on the fractions of ferrous oxide. The analysis suggests that resolubilization of aluminum hydroxide could occur in the settling basin, in which pH exceeded 10 due to the continued dissolution of the overdosed lime. The present study demonstrated that chemical analysis of sludge combined with process simulation could provide a reasonable estimate of mass balance and chemistry in a neutralization facility for acid mine drainage.