On the physico-chemical characteristics of brines

Abstract

Analyses of the natural brines form the salt lakes, salt pans and the artificial brines obtained after the solar desalination of seawater respectively, showed wide differences in their physico-chemical characteristics. The natural brines are markEd. by significant increases in density, salinity and the major element composition relative to the artificial ones. The salinity of the salt pan brines though varied from 287.78 to 329.44 PSU, an apparent uniformity was observed in their chemical composition. The salt lake brines on the contrary varied in salinity from as low as 13.34 to as high as 473.46 PSU and indicated greater diversion in their chemical composition. The observed properties of the solar still brines range between the two types of natural brines.