Experimental study on copper recovery from berberine wastewater by crystalline precipitate-adsorption resin combined process

A combination of crystalline precipitation and resin adsorption process was adopted for the recovery of copper contained in berberine production industrial wastewater. Optimized conditions were studied by batch experiments. The crystal structure of produced precipitate as tribasic copper chloride (TBCC) was evaluated by XRD analysis. The results showed that under the pH of 7.0-9.0, over 99.9% copper was recovered by crystalline precipitation process. The composition of basic copper chloride precipitation could meet with national standards(GB/T 21696-2008) of feed-grade after water washing. After a following ion exchange treatment the effluent copper ion concentration was less than 1.0 mg/L. On the basis of the bench-scale test, a pilot scale test was carried out. The results of pilot scale tests certified the effect of this combined process. This process could recover the copper resource from pharmaceutical industrial wastewater and, at the same time, improve the pH from lower than 1 to higher than 7, which would be beneficial to the comprehensive treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater and the meeting of discharge standards.