Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology, 2024 (SCI-Expanded)
The present study proposes a bipolar membrane electrodialysis (BMED) integrated sustainable environment-friendly process for producing H3BO3 in high purity and NaOH from tincal. Employment of Taguchi experimental design technique supported by TOPSIS optimization method revealed that the optimum process parameters are the initial feed concentration of 160 g NaCl/L and 36 g H3BO3/L, the applied current of 4.2 A, the flow rate of 31 L/h, the initial acid and base concentration of 0.15 M, and the electrolyte concentration of 0.2 M. In the experiment performed under optimum operating conditions, 2.15 M acid and 2.20 M base were obtained. The produced acid solution was determined to contain 10.5 g NaCl/L and 2.8 g H3BO3/L and the base to contain 13.3 g NaCl/L and 6 g H3BO3/L. The boric acid crystals obtained by the crystallization of concentrated feed solution from BMED were determined to have 99.96% purity, which verifies that H3BO3 in high purity can be produced by BMED process. Solid waste and concentrated liquid waste formation of the conventional H3BO3 production process can also be eliminated, and NaOH can be produced at an industrial scale without chlorine gas emission, by using BMED as an alternative to conventional methods. Graphical abstract: (Figure presented.)