Wulfhard Mickler

• Based on a study of the German Ministry of Research and Technology in 1990 every year about 2.5 t of heavy metals are released per hectare of landfill by aqueous leaching. This leachate contains approximately 2000 t of heavy metals per year. Their decontaminations in accordance with the legal requirements represent an enormous potential for easing the burden on the environment. On the other hand, this potential opens new possibilities in the production and recycling of selected compounds. The composition of a given model solution corresponds to a landfill leachate resulting from a municipal dump leachate produced by an average German city. Actually, in most cases, a decontamination of such solutions occurs by the transfer of the problematic cations into insoluble compounds usually done by precipitation. The result of the procedure is an unspecific separation of all liquid components - and the "cycle of waste" (landfill- leaching-deposition) begins anew, certainly on a higher level. The objective of our work is the simultaneousBased on a study of the German Ministry of Research and Technology in 1990 every year about 2.5 t of heavy metals are released per hectare of landfill by aqueous leaching. This leachate contains approximately 2000 t of heavy metals per year. Their decontaminations in accordance with the legal requirements represent an enormous potential for easing the burden on the environment. On the other hand, this potential opens new possibilities in the production and recycling of selected compounds. The composition of a given model solution corresponds to a landfill leachate resulting from a municipal dump leachate produced by an average German city. Actually, in most cases, a decontamination of such solutions occurs by the transfer of the problematic cations into insoluble compounds usually done by precipitation. The result of the procedure is an unspecific separation of all liquid components - and the "cycle of waste" (landfill- leaching-deposition) begins anew, certainly on a higher level. The objective of our work is the simultaneous separation of heavy metals from alkaline earth metals and iron in order to obtain a leachate which we can lead back to the landfill. The reactive extraction as a separation process offers the possibility of a selective separation of cations that is the separation of toxic - from unproblematic components and includes also the possibility of electrolysis or further winning processes to obtain the wished metals. For the realisation of extraction processes, several commercial extractants and technical equipments are available. Apart from iron, LIX 54 could be used advantageously for an extraction process - unfortunately without any considerable extraction of cadmium. But it is favourable to separate non toxic alkaline earth metals from problematic heavy metals. Such a complex task as the separation of cations from natural solutions cannot be solved easily in a one-step-extraction process. Better results should be obtained by the combination of different procedures, e.g. extraction, ion-exchange and precipitation.…