Soil pollution by oxidation of tailings from toxic spill of a pyrite mine

Simón, M.; Martı́n, Francisco; Ortíz, I.; García, Ignacio; Fernández, Juan Manuel Pat; Ondoño, Emilia Fernández; Dorronsoro, Carlos; Aguilar, J.

doi:10.1016/s0048-9697(01)00726-4

Cited by 114 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Subsequent rains dissolved the soluble salts formed, which then infiltrated the soil and thereby, raised the pollution level. These processes were very fast; in 10 days, the content in soluble SO 4 2− multiplied 10-fold in the driest tailings in relation to the wettest, and in 3 months, the concentration of most of the pollutants multiplied 2.5-fold in the first 10 cm of the soils (Simón et al 2001). This speed underscores the urgency of removing the tailings from the soil surfaces in these types of spills.…”

mentioning

confidence: 89%

Distribution of As and Zn in Soils Affected by the Spill of a Pyrite Mine and Effectiveness of the Remediation Measures

Simón

Díez

Fernández

et al. 2008

Water Air Soil Pollut

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The concentrations of As and Zn in 100 georeferenced soils uniformly distributed throughout the area affected by the spill from the Aznalcóllar mine (April 1998) were analysed at three depths (0-10, 10-30, and 30-50 cm) and on four dates (autumn-winter 1998, 1999, 2001, and 2004). For an estimate of the geochemical background, 30 unaffected soils near the edge of the spill were also analysed at the same depths. The soils were contaminated before the spill and, the accident seriously increased the concentration of As and Zn in the first 10 cm of almost all the affected soils. After the enormous efforts of cleaning up the tailings, around 45% of the soils had a concentration higher than 100 mg As kg −1 dry soil, and some 35% had a concentration higher than 1,000 mg Zn kg −1 dry soil. Both As and Zn penetrated between 10 and 30 cm in 25% and 45% of the soils, respectively, but reached 30 cm in only 12% of the soils. The remediation actions, especially the tilling and homogenisation of the uppermost 25 cm of the all soils, caused the As and Zn concentrations to decline in the soils, but this change was not very effective from the standpoint of pollution. Thus, 6 years after the spill, the uppermost 10 cm of 30% of the soils continued to have an As concentration higher than 100 mg As kg −1 , while the Zn concentration diminished considerably on the surface due to its greater mobility, accumulating between 10 and 30 cm in depth, where 20% of the soils continued to register more than 1,000 mg Zn kg −1 dry soil.

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mentioning

confidence: 89%

Distribution of As and Zn in Soils Affected by the Spill of a Pyrite Mine and Effectiveness of the Remediation Measures

Simón

Díez

Fernández

et al. 2008

Water Air Soil Pollut

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show abstract

“…In fact, Zn is knownto be readily mobile relative to other metals [26]. No significant differences among treatments were found in the residual fraction.As a rule, the fractionation scheme showed that the trace elements studied were mainly associated with the residual pool, presumably because of the recovery of the metal sulfides from the mine spill within this fraction [22,27]. For Pb and Cd element before and after sugarcane remediation, the sum of F1, F2, and F3 accounted for the corresponding significant proportions of 75.61% and72.17% prior to remediation and 74.74% and 85.29% after remediation.…”

Section: Available Heavy Metal Forms Variationmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…Although most of the Cu from the spill entered the soil in the soluble phase in the form of sulfates, an important amount of Cu was also recovered in the residual fraction [26]. This mineral shows high resistance to weathering because of its encapsulation with silicate grains, thus avoiding dissolution processes [22,26,27]. The mean concentrations of Zn in F1 were much higher than those of other elements with similar pseudo-total concentrations to As and Pb.…”

Section: Available Heavy Metal Forms Variationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Short-term phytoremediation effect of sugarcane for contaminated farmland on heavy metal accumulation ability along the Huanjiang River in Guangxi, China

Wang¹,

Deng²,

et al. 2017

Proceedings of the 2017 5th International Conference on Mechatronics, Materials, Chemistry and Computer Engineering (ICMMCCE 20

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“…In all cases, the As pollution concentrated in the uppermost 10 cm of the soils and decreased sharply in depth, without significantly affecting the subsoil or groundwater (Simón et al, 2001Dorronsoro et al, 2002). To study the As retention in the soil, we made extractions with selective reagents (water, calcium chloride, acetic acid, EDTA, oxalic-oxalate).…”

Section: Evolution Of the Soil Pollution After The Remediation Actionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Arsenic was one of the major components of the toxic tailings, with a mean concentration of 4953 mg kg -1 (López-Pamo et al, 1999). The correlation between total As and sulphur strongly suggest that As was present in the tailings as arsenopyrite (FeAsS) and that the oxidation of the tailings would release iron and As (Simón et al, 2001). The remediation of soils was focused on the clean-up of the tailings and uppermost layer of the heavily polluted soils, together with the application of blocking agents to neutralize the acidity and to immobilize the highly soluble As concentrations (Aguilar et al, 2007b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%