Today, the lack of fresh water is one of humanity's biggest problems. This problem of water scarcity also affects industries, one of the most affected is mining. Electrocoagulation has shown great efficiency in the treatment of organic contaminants and heavy metals, and it is proposed in this work for the elimination of ions and undesirable organic compounds present in the mining-metallurgical process water and has shown great efficacy over toxic metals like arsenic, since their presence reduces the efficiency of the processes, such as flotation, using two types of electrodes, stainless steel, and aluminum. The best results were achieved with aluminum ones, being able to remove the 90% of the copper, this ion may cause a decrease in flotation efficiency.
The turbidity of the water during the process was measured to determine the amount the solid present in the water, observing a reduction around of 95%, the sedimentation of the clots come about in two stage, first the coagulant was formed which trap organic matter increasing the size until reaching a particle size sufficient to settle, this process presents a zero-order kinetic model, continuing with the settle of formed clots, this stage represented by a second-order kinetic model. Test flotation were carried out with process water and electrotreated process water, obtaining an increase of 1.5% in gold recovery and 2% in silver, using electrotreated water. The formed clots were analyzed by Scanning Electronic Microscopy founding that metal ions were trapped in the clots, and the electrocoagulation can remove toxic substances like arsenic.