Sustainable resolutions for environmental threat of the acid mine drainage

Rezaie, Behnaz; Anderson, Austin

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.137211

Cited by 96 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Mining is associated with significant production of large volumes of toxic acidic water with elevated heavy metals (HM) and sulfates known as acid mine drainage (AMD) (Rambabu et al, 2020). Acid mine drainage has become a serious global issue in recent times owing to its hazardous impact on the environment and living organisms (Kefeni et al, 2017;Grande et al, 2018;Steyn et al, 2019;Rezaie and Anderson, 2020). In the mining regions of Australia (Lei et al, 2010), Brazil (Galhardi and Bonotto, 2016), Canada (Sracek et al, 2004), England, Wales, Spain, Norway (Hallberg, 2010;Romero et al, 2011), Morocco (Boularbah et al, 2006), South Africa (Ochieng et al, 2010), China (Wu et al, 2009;Wang et al, 2021b), and United States of America (Blowes et al, 2005;Acharya and Kharel, 2020) concern over AMD pollution has been reported, with inactive and abandoned mines generating huge quantities of AMD that contaminates both terrestrial and aquatic systems including agricultural soils, ground-, and surface-water sources (Rezaie and Anderson, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microbial Community Diversity Dynamics in Acid Mine Drainage and Acid Mine Drainage-Polluted Soils: Implication on Mining Water Irrigation Agricultural Sustainability

Munyai

Ogola

Modise

2021

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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Environmental degradation related to mining-generated acid mine drainage (AMD) is a major global concern, contaminating surface and groundwater sources, including agricultural land. In the last two decades, many developing countries are expanding agricultural productivity in mine-impacted soils to meet food demand for their rapidly growing population. Further, the practice of AMD water (treated or untreated) irrigated agriculture is on the increase, particularly in water-stressed nations around the world. For sustainable agricultural production systems, optimal microbial diversity, and functioning is critical for soil health and plant productivity. Thus, this review presents up-to-date knowledge on the microbial structure and functional dynamics of AMD habitats and AMD-impacted agricultural soils. The long-term effects of AMD water such as soil acidification, heavy metals (HM), iron and sulfate pollution, greatly reduces microbial biomass, richness, and diversity, impairing soil health plant growth and productivity, and impacts food safety negatively. Despite these drawbacks, AMD-impacted habitats are unique ecological niches for novel acidophilic, HM, and sulfate-adapted microbial phylotypes that might be beneficial to optimal plant growth and productivity and bioremediation of polluted agricultural soils. This review has also highlighted the impact active and passive treatment technologies on AMD microbial diversity, further extending the discussion on the interrelated microbial diversity, and beneficial functions such as metal bioremediation, acidity neutralization, symbiotic rhizomicrobiome assembly, and plant growth promotion, sulfates/iron reduction, and biogeochemical N and C recycling under AMD-impacted environment. The significance of sulfur-reducing bacteria (SRB), iron-oxidizing bacteria (FeOB), and plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPRs) as key players in many passive and active systems dedicated to bioremediation and microbe-assisted phytoremediation is also elucidated and discussed. Finally, new perspectives on the need for future studies, integrating meta-omics and process engineering on AMD-impacted microbiomes, key to designing and optimizing of robust active and passive bioremediation of AMD-water before application to agricultural production is proposed.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microbial Community Diversity Dynamics in Acid Mine Drainage and Acid Mine Drainage-Polluted Soils: Implication on Mining Water Irrigation Agricultural Sustainability

Munyai

Ogola

Modise

2021

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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“…Environmental treatment of AMD is pivotal on the way towards sustainable mining and several techniques have been proposed and discussed (e.g., [46] and references therein). The present work suggests a new way to approach the problem that can lead to two typologies of actions depending on the conditions of the mines.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental Impact Variability of Copper Tailing Dumps in Fushe Arrez (Northern Albania): The Role of Pyrite Separation during Flotation

et al. 2021

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Acid mine drainage and potentially toxic elements release are a major source of pollution in sulfide-rich mining sites. Pyrite is the most impacting mineral due to its high acidification potential when it reacts with water under oxidizing conditions. At the Fushe Arrez dressing plant in Northern Albania, a volcanic massive sulfide copper mining district, pyrite was in past separated, with a double flotation process, to produce a pyrite concentrate and relatively-pyrite-poor tailings. In the last twenty years single flotation has replaced the double flotation process and pyrite has been deposited in pyrite-rich tailings stacked separately from the old ones. The study of the solid tailing materials and natural waters flowing through the dumping area, together with leaching tests show that waters interacting with single flotation tailings are slightly more acidic and much higher in total metal contents than those interacting with double flotation tailings. Also, the metal distribution is different, with the former being higher in sulfide-hosted metals and the latter higher in gangue-hosted metals. It is thus suggested that separation of pyrite can play an important role in the sustainable mining of pyrite-rich ores, either for dumping high hazardous pyrite concentrate separately or for marketing it as a by-product. An implementation of studies for the industrial uses of pyrite is pivotal in this last case.

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“…In the past decade, many studies on new materials, methods, and technologies for acid recovery via DD were published. Although reviews on acid recovery involving membrane technologies have been published recently, they focused on specific application scenarios, such as acid recovery from acid mine drainage [36,37] and fatty acid recovery [38] or specific technologies, such as electromembrane technology [39] and reactive separation technology [40]. There are few comprehensive reviews that summarize the developments for the key component, AEMs, in detail.…”

Section: Materials Price ($)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Diffusion Dialysis for Acid Recovery from Acidic Waste Solutions: Anion Exchange Membranes and Technology Integration

Zhang

Wang

2020

Membranes

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Inorganic acids are commonly used in mining, metallurgical, metal-processing, and nuclear-fuel-reprocessing industries in various processes, such as leaching, etching, electroplating, and metal-refining. Large amounts of spent acidic liquids containing toxic metal ion complexes are produced during these operations, which pose a serious hazard to the living and non-living environment. Developing economic and eco-friendly regeneration approaches to recover acid and valuable metals from these industrial effluents has focused the interest of the research community. Diffusion dialysis (DD) using anion exchange membranes (AEMs) driven by an activity gradient is considered an effective technology with a low energy consumption and little environmental contamination. In addition, the properties of AEMs have an important effect on the DD process. Hence, this paper gives a critical review of the properties of AEMs, including their acid permeability, membrane stability, and acid selectivity during the DD process for acid recovery. Furthermore, the DD processes using AEMs integrated with various technologies, such as pressure, an electric field, or continuous operation are discussed to enhance its potential for industrial applications. Finally, some directions are provided for the further development of AEMs in DD for acid recovery from acidic waste solutions.

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Sustainable resolutions for environmental threat of the acid mine drainage

Cited by 96 publications

References 29 publications

Microbial Community Diversity Dynamics in Acid Mine Drainage and Acid Mine Drainage-Polluted Soils: Implication on Mining Water Irrigation Agricultural Sustainability

Microbial Community Diversity Dynamics in Acid Mine Drainage and Acid Mine Drainage-Polluted Soils: Implication on Mining Water Irrigation Agricultural Sustainability

Environmental Impact Variability of Copper Tailing Dumps in Fushe Arrez (Northern Albania): The Role of Pyrite Separation during Flotation

Diffusion Dialysis for Acid Recovery from Acidic Waste Solutions: Anion Exchange Membranes and Technology Integration

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