Treatment of heavy-metal wastewater by vacuum membrane distillation: effect of wastewater properties

Heavy metal wastewater is a common byproduct in heavy metal industries. Membrane distillation is considered as promising technology to treat such wastewater. The treatment of heavy metal wastewater by vacuum membrane distillation (VMD) was conducted in this work. The effects of pH, calcium and EDTA on VMD performance were investigated. VMD process showed a good acid resistance as the solution pH above 0. When the solution pH was 0, the permeate conductivity was below 40 mu S.cm-1. Calcium and EDTA were found to have influence on VMD performance to some extent. VMD process was proved to be suitable for heavy metal wastewater as long as the impurity content was in control of a certain degree.