Acid mine drainage: Prevention, treatment options, and resource recovery: A review

Mining of mineral resources results in extensive soil damage, altering microbial communities and affecting vegetation leading to destruction of vast amounts of land. Reclamation is the process to restore the ecological integrity of these disturbed mine land areas. It includes the management of all types of physical, chemical and biological disturbances of soils such as soil pH, fertility, microbial community and various soil nutrient cycles that makes the degraded land soil productive. Productivity of soil can be increased by adding various natural amendments such as saw dust, wood residues, sewage sludge, animal manures, as these amendments stimulate the microbial activity which provides the nutrients (N, P) and organic carbon to the soil. The top soil gets seriously damaged during mineral extraction. The consequences of physical disturbance to the top soil during stripping, stockpiling, and reinstatement cause unusually large N transformations and movements with eventually substantial loss. Management of top soil is important for reclamation plan to reduce the N losses and to increase soil nutrients and microbes. Revegetation constitutes the most widely accepted and useful way to reduce erosion and protect soils against degradation during reclamation. Mine restoration efforts have focused on N-fixing species of legumes, grasses, herbs, and trees. Metal tolerant plants can be effective for acidic and heavy metals bearing soils. Reclamation of abandoned mine land is a very complex process. Once the reclamation plan is complete and vegetation has established, the assessment of the reclaimed site is necessary to evaluate the success of reclamation. Evaluation of reclamation success focuses on measuring the occurrence and distribution of soil microflora community which is regulated by interactions between C and nutrient availabilities. Reclamation success also measures the structure and functioning of mycorrhizal symbiosis and various enzymatic activities in soil. This paper includes physical, chemical and biological mine soil properties, their management to make soil productive, top soil management, vegetation of various species and assessment of effectiveness of reclamation.

/pdf/soil-reclamation-of-abandoned-mine-land-by-revegetation-a-5x4xz2jad3.pdf

Soil Reclamation of Abandoned Mine Land by Revegetation: A Review

Heavy metal pollution induced due to coal mining effluent on surrounding aquatic ecosystem and its management through naturally occurring aquatic macrophytes.

A critical global issue in the 21st century is water shortage, as well as its pollution with noxious metal ions and organic dyes. To extract these pollutants from wastewater, a variety of traditional methods have been employed but they lack reusability/recyclability, are expensive, environmentally unfriendly, unsafe and the remediation process takes a long time. Therefore, to treat these contaminants, nanotechnology (NT) has recently been granted several leeways in terms of making the desirable nanomaterials (NMs) with high surface-to-volume ratios and special surface functionalities. In particular, fly ash (FA) has stood out as one of the greatest exciting new-found affordable and high efficient materials for water decontamination owing to its high porosity, huge surface area, and exceptional features. Hence, this present review study will attempt to compile data from existing literature on the utilization of FA-based adsorbent for the removal of heavy metals (HMs) and dyes from wastewater. Based on the reviewed publications, Langmuir's isotherm models (LIMs) and Freundlich's isotherm models (FIMs) best described the sorption process thus signalling monolayer and multi-layer sorptions. Pseudo-second-order (PSO) model provided the best appropriate means in elucidating the kinetic process and both exothermic and endothermic processes revealed the nature of the thermodynamic process during sorption. Some recommendations in the form of future prospects on how to advance the capacity of the adsorption and effectiveness of FA on the removal of HMs, dyes and other environmental contaminants using innovative technologies such as the nanofiber technology is also been proposed.

Fly ash-based adsorbent for adsorption of heavy metals and dyes from aqueous solution: a review

Coal is the major fossil fuel used for power generation in India. For producing more and more coal, mining activities are increasing day by day. Coal mining activities lead to environmental changes to a large extent such as degradation in quality of air, water, soil, changes in landform, land use/land cover and vegetation distribution. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is therefore important to study the nature and impact of mining activities on the environment. The present study includes a review of the environmental impact studies done on various specific aspects in India, which involve methodologies of field-site investigation, laboratory analysis and satellite data processing. The study could be broadly divided into two parts. Firstly, taking Jharia coal-field as a case study, the parameters/criteria affecting the environment have been identified. The parameters that are the most affected due to mining are air, water, soil, agricultural land, vegetation and, topography. Later, Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) has been used for prioritizing of these parameters/criteria to carry out EIA in Jharia coal-field. Upon analysis, air has been found to be the most affected followed by water, soil, vegetation, agricultural land and topography. Moreover, the alternatives for each parameter/criterion have also been prioritized. The proposed methodology will help in deriving relationships based on field, laboratory and satellite data analysis. Once these relationships are derived, steps could be taken by policy makers for modification of the existing mine policies and incorporating the new measures in future mine planning so as to reduce the impact of coal mining on the environment.

Environmental impact studies in coalfields in India: A case study from Jharia coal-field

Acid mine drainage (AMD) occurs naturally in abandoned coal mines, and it contains hazardous toxic elements in varying concentrations. In the present research, AMD samples collected from an abandoned mine were treated with fly ash samples from four thermal power plants in Singrauli Coalfield in the proximate area, at optimized concentrations. The AMD samples were analyzed for physicochemical parameters and metal content before and after fly ash treatment. Morphological, geochemical and mineralogical characterization of the fly ash was performed using SEM, XRF and XRD. This laboratory-scale investigation indicated that fly ash had appreciable neutralization potential, increasing AMD pH and decreasing elemental and sulfate concentrations. Therefore, fly ash may be effectively used for AMD neutralization, and its suitability for the management of coalfield AMD pits should be assessed further.

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/11/9/3910/pdf

Assessment of Characteristics of Acid Mine Drainage Treated with Fly Ash

Acid mine drainage control in an opencast coal mine

ABSTRACT Overburden is the earth material removed during opencast mining, which is typically not contaminated with toxic materials. After mining operations, overburdens are dumped on exhausted mining sites. However, some opencast mines are not properly backfilled, and this causes harmful environmental effects, such as leaching of acid mine drainage. The flyash produced from thermal power plants is also a major waste that must be disposed of environmentally friendly. This study focuses on filling the voids of an abandoned mine with a mixture of 70% overburden + 30% flyash. A considerable improvement in acid mine drainage characteristics was found after either adding overburden or an overburden and flyash mixture. Sustainable management of coal mines should include the careful restoration of exhausted mines, which can be made possible by repurposing relevant industrial waste.

Assessment and characterization of waste material used as backfilling in an abandoned mine

Study on assessment of slope stability and mixed disposal of overburden in voids of Singrauli Coalfield

In the pursuit for rapid industrial growth in India the consumption of coal as an energy resource has increased manifold. In comparison to coal production, much less attention is paid to the ecological aspects in the coal mining industry. This is perhaps because the disastrous effect caused by newly modified environments due to mining in a particular area is not immediate, but effects are visible after a period of time. Hence, with the adoption of advanced technology for higher production, India is gradually heading towards irreversible environmental damage brought about by land degradation, deforestation, water pollution, air pollution and noise pollution. As a part of an exercise to study the impact of large scale opencast mining operations, Singrauli Coalfield is an excellent example. The paper is part of research work being carried out in Singrauli coalfields (now Northern Coalfields Ltd.) the biggest opencast coal mine in Asia. The paper attempts to cover various sources of water pollution in Singrauli opencast coal mine at one place and the measurement of chemical parameters of water to assess the water quality degradation in and around the mine. 11 refs.

Impact of opencast coal mining on water environment - a case study

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