REASONS FOR SOIL CONTAMINATION WITH MERCURY
• Gold concentration using mercury. Heating the amalgam leads to evaporation of mercury and condensation of its vapor in the air. Mercury falls in microdroplets onto the soil.
• Extraction of cinnabar and production of mercury.
• Production of caustic soda. There is a technology for producing caustic soda using mercury. During the metal production process, mercury vapor penetrates the soil and supporting structures.
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INFLUENCE OF MERCURY ON THE HUMAN BODY
• Chronic mercury poisoning leads to damage to the nervous system and is characterized by the presence of asthenovegetative syndrome with distinct mercury tremor (trembling of the hands, tongue, eyelids, even legs and the whole body), unstable pulse, tachycardia, agitation, mental disorders, gingivitis.
• Extremely acute mercury poisoning causes lung destruction. As a rule, the noted syndromes and symptoms are observed when exposed to mercury vapor at concentrations in the air of more than 0.1 mg/m. But mental disorders can also occur at lower concentrations.
• Organic mercury derivatives are very toxic. The most important signs of poisoning by them are severe damage to the central nervous system, ataxia (disorder of coordination in the contraction of various muscle groups), visual impairment, paresthesia (feelings of numbness, tingling, crawling, etc.), dysarthria (speech disorder), hearing impairment, pain in the limbs.
TECHNOLOGY, EQUIPMENT, TURNKEY SOLUTIONS
Gravicon EU offers a solution to the problem of cleaning up mercury-contaminated areas.
The proposed technology makes it possible to clean contaminated areas from mercury and its compounds, reclaim them and make them suitable for further use.
We produce and supply equipment that allows us to work in a wide range of technological parameters and, at the location of the processing complex, to adjust its parameters for the most efficient processing of a specific type of man-made raw material in order to obtain final industrial products in accordance with current ASTM or DIN standards.
The main feature of our patented technology is the cleaning of the surfaces and internal cavities of soil particles from various metals and metal-containing compounds of various stoichiometric compositions and their subsequent separation using gravitational, magnetic separation and ultrasound methods.
ADVANTAGES OF TECHNOLOGY
• Our technology is one of the few that provides environmentally friendly processing of industrial waste with different chemical and mineralogical composition
• Cleaned soil from heavy metals and their compounds can be used for reclamation of a technogenic deposit.
• Process productivity up to 100 t/hour, based on feedstock.
• As a result of processing, concentrates of heavy metals and their compounds are obtained, suitable for further use in industry.
• Since all processing processes take place in an aquatic environment, there are no emissions into the environment. In the production line, water is purified and reused.
• Positive results were obtained in cleaning the soil of the Radikal plant from mercury and its compounds. Before cleaning, the mercury content was 24,000 mg/kg; after cleaning, the mercury content decreased to 20 - 80 mg/kg. When using an additional processing circuit, the residual mercury content is in the range of 15 - 22 mg/kg. A soil micro-purification module has been developed and tested, which allows reducing the content of mercury and its compounds to 0.03 - 0.12 mg/kg.