Active Treatment Methods for Mine Water

Life Cycle Assessment of Management/Valorisation Practices for Metal-Sludge from Treatment of Acid Mine Drainage

“…In this sense, mine waters can be treated by chemical and/ or biological mechanisms upon two generic approaches; those considered active, which require continuous inputs of resources to sustain the process, or those passive, that in turn, require relatively little resource input once in operation (e.g., Johnson and Hallberg, 2005;Skousen et al, 2017). Operating mines have traditionally adopted active treatments due to the generation of a huge volume of polluted waters which would require large surface areas to treat them by passive technologies (e.g., Wolkersdorfer, 2021). Active treatments remove acidity and metals from AMD by the continuous addition of alkaline materials, leading to the generation of a huge amount of sludge whose management could suppose an environmental quandary worldwide (Macías et al, 2017).…”