Long-term treatment of acid mine drainage by alkali diffusion ceramic reactor: Simultaneous metal removal mechanisms

A novel alkali diffusion reactor using ceramic porous media (ceram-ADR) was designed for the long-term remediation of acid mine drainage (AMD) without external energy. The filling material was newly applied to improve the ceram-ADR for intensive long-term treatment of acidity and metals in AMD. Activated carbon (AC), polyurethane (PU), or MgO-incorporated polyurethane (PU-MgO) were inserted as filling materials into ceram-ADR. NaHCO₃ was used as the alkaline chemical. PU did not enhance the neutralizing capacity of ADR and metal removal efficiency. Although the ceram-ADR with PU-MgO showed long-term removal efficiency for all metals up to 545 bed volumes (BVs), the effluent pH complied with the mineral mining and processing effluent guidelines during 45 BVs. Ceram-ADR with AC enhanced the long-term treatment (up to a year) of metals and acidity in AMD. Mn concentration in the effluent discharged from ceram-ADR exceeded the mineral mining and processing effluent guidelines, followed by Zn, Al, and Fe. The main removal mechanism for metals was precipitation as a metal hydroxide or metal carbonate. The ion exchange of metal ions on the surface of ceramic porous media and AC can influence the adsorption behavior, which is responsible for 15.3% of the total removal of metals. The ceram-ADR with AC could be reused at least five times with no appreciable loss in activity. These results highlight the hybrid operation of ADR for the best performance in mining areas where the passive and active system are insufficient because of low efficiency, budget limitations, and geological sites.