Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-gs9qr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-30T21:06:58.723Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mineralogical, numerical and analytical studies of the coupled oxidation of pyrite and coal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2018

K. A. Evans ,
C. J. Gandy  and
S. A. Banwart
K. A. Evans*
Affiliation:
Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, University of Sheffield, Mappin St, Sheffield S1 3JD, UK
C. J. Gandy
Affiliation:
School of Engineering and Geosciences, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK
S. A. Banwart
Affiliation:
Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, University of Sheffield, Mappin St, Sheffield S1 3JD, UK
*
E-mail:katy.evans@csiro.au
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Mineralogical, bulk and field leachate compositions are used to identify important processes governing the evolution of discharges from a coal spoil heap in County Durham. These processes are incorporated into a numerical one-dimensional advective-kinetic reactive transport model which reproduces field results, including gas compositions, to within an order of magnitude. Variation of input parameters allows the effects of incorrect initial assumptions on elemental profiles and discharge chemistry to be assessed. Analytical expressions for widths and speeds of kinetic reaction fronts are developed and used to predict long-term development of mineralogical distribution within the heap. Results are consistent with observations from the field site. Pyrite oxidation is expected to dominate O2 consumption in spoil heaps on the decadal timescale, although C oxidation may stabilize contaminants in effluents on the centennial scale.

Keywords

reactive transport modellingredoxpyrite dissolutionacid mine drainageweathering.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Mineralogical Magazine , Volume 67 , Issue 2 , April 2003 , pp. 381 - 398
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

†

Present address: CSIRO Exploration and Mining, Box 312, Clayton South, Victoria 3169, Australia

References

Appelo, C.A.J. and Postma, D. (1993) Geochemistry, Groundwater and Pollution. A.A. Balkema, Rotterdam, 536 pp.Google Scholar
Baldi, F., Clark, T., Pollack, S.S. and Olson, G.J. (1992) Leaching of pyrites of various reactivities by Thiobacillus Ferrooxidans. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 58, 1853—1856.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ball, J.W. and Nordstrom, D.K. (1991) WATEQ4F: Users manual with revised thermodynamic data base and test cases for calculating speciation of major, trace and redox elements in natural waters. USGS Open-File Report 90-129 Denver, Colorado.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banks, D., Younger, P.L., Arnesen, P.L., Iverson, E.R. and Banks, S.B. (1997) Mine-water chemistry: the good, the bad and the ugly. Environmental Geology 32, 157—174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banwart, S.A. and Malmstrom, M.E. (2001) Hydrochemical modelling for preliminary assessment of minewater pollution. Journal of Geochemical Exploration, 74, 73—97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennet, J.W., Comarmond, M.J., Clark, N.R., Carras, J.N. and Day, S. (1999) Intrinsic oxidation rates of coal reject measured in the laboratory. Pp. 9—17 in: Mining and the Environment II (Goldsack, D., Belzile, N., Yearwood, P. and Hall, G., editors). Conference Proceedings, Sudbury, Ontario.Google Scholar
Bickle, M. and Baker, J. (1990) Migration of reaction and isotopic fronts infiltration zones: assessments of fluid flux in metamorphic terrains. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 98, 1—13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blowes, D.W. (1991) The formation and potential importance of cement layers in active sulphide mine tailings. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 55, 965—978.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Capitan, M.A. et al. (2001) Acid mine drainage remediation: what can we learn from the mineralogy of gossans? Pp. 42—43 in: Metals in the Weathering Environment (Rice, C.M. and R. Herrington, editors). Conference Abstract volume, Geological Society, London.Google Scholar
Chang, S. and Berner, R.A. (1999) Coal weathering and the geochemical carbon cycle. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 63, 3301—3310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fanning, D.S. and Keramidas, V.Z. (1989) Micas. Pp. 195—258 in: Minerals in Soil Environments (Dixon, J.B. and Weed, S.B., editors). Soil Science Society of America, Madison, Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Gandy, C.J. and Evans, K.A. (2002) Laboratory and numerical modelling studies of iron release from a spoil heap in County Durham. Pp. 205—214 in: Minewater Hydrogeology and Geochemistry (Robins, N.S. and Younger, P., editors). Special Publication, 198. Geological Society, London.Google Scholar
Glynn, P. (2000) Solid-solution solubilities and thermodynamics: sulphates, carbonates and halides. Pp. 481—5 11 in: Sulfate Minerals — Crystallography, Geochemistry and Environmental Significance (Alpers, C.N., Jambor, J.L., and Nordstrom, D.K., editors). Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry, 40. Mineralogical Society of America and the Geochemical Society, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Guo, W., Parizek, R.R. and Rose, A.W. (1994) The role of thermal convection in resupplying O2 to strip coal-mine spoil. Soil Science, 158, 47—55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarvis, A.P. and Younger, P.L. (1999) Design, construction and performance of a full-scale compost wetland for mine-spoil drainage treatment at Quaking Houses. Journal of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, 13, 313—318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaynes, D.B., Rogowski, A.S. and Pionke, H.B. (1972) Atmosphere and temperature changes within a reclaimed coal strip mine. Soil Science, 136, 164—177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, J.C., Henderson, K.P., Littlefair, J. and Rennie, S. (1991) Kinetic parameters of oxidation of coals by heat-release measurement and their relevance to selfheating tests. Fuel, 77, 19—22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kemp, P. and Griffiths, J. (1999) Quaking Houses: Art, Science and the community, a Collaborative Approach to Water Pollution. John Carpenter, Oxfordshire, UK 142 pp.Google Scholar
Kretzschmar, R., Robarge, W.P. and Amoozegar, A. (1994) Filter efficiency of three saprolites for natural clay and iron oxide colloids. Environmental Science and Technology, 28, 1907—1915.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lako, M. (1998) Monitoring and modellinggroundwater flow and solute transport in the Morrison Busty spoil heap, County Durham. MSc thesis (unpubl.) University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.Google Scholar
Lasaga, A.C. (1989) Fluid flow and chemical reaction kinetics in metamorphic systems: a new simple model. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 94, 417—424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lasaga, A.C. and Rye, D.M. (1993) Fluid flow and chemical reaction kinetics in simple systems. American Journal of Science, 293, 461—404.Google Scholar
Malmstrom, M.E., Destouni, G., Banwart, S.A. and Stromberg, B.H.E. (2000) Resolving the scale- dependence of mineral weathering rates. Environmental Science and Technology, 34, 1375—1378.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martello, D.V., Vecchio, K.S., Diehl, J.R., Graham, R.A., Tamilia, J.P. and Pollack, S.S. (1994) Do dislocations and stacking faults increase the oxidation rate of pyrite. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 58, 4657—4665.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKibben, M.A. and Barnes, H.L. (1986) Oxidation of pyrite in low temperature acidic solutions: rate laws and surface textures. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 50, 1509—1520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagy, K.L., Blum, A.E. and Lasaga, A.C. (1991) Dissolution and precipitation kinetics of kaolinite at 80°C and pH3: the dependence on solution saturation state. American Journal of Science, 291, 649—686.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nordstrom, D.K. and Southam, G. (1997) Geomicrobiology of sulfide mineral oxidation. Pp. 361—390 in: Geomicrobiology: Interactions between Microbes and Minerals (Banfield, J.F. and Nealson, K.H., editors). Reviews in Mineralogy, 35, Mineralogical Society of America, Washington, D.C.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parkhurst, D.L. and Appelo, C.A.J. (1999) Users guide to PhreeqC (version 2): a computer program for speciation, batch reaction, one dimensional transport and inverse geochemical calculations. USGS Water-Resources Investigations Report 99-4259 Denver, Colorado.Google Scholar
Press, W.H., Flannery, B.P., Teulolsky, S.A. and Vetterling, W.T. (1986) Numerical Recipes. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 818 pp.Google Scholar
Pritchard, J. (1997) Leachate Release from a Large Body of Contaminated Land: Morrison Busty Spoil Heap, County Durham. MSc thesis (unpubl.) University of Newcastle, UK.Google Scholar
Spears, D.A., Taylor, R.K. and Till, R. (1971) A mineralogical investigation of a spoil heap at Yorkshire Main Colliery. Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology, 3, 239—252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stoffregen, R.E., Alpers, C.N. and Jambor, J.L. (2000) Alunite-jarosite crystallography, thermodynamics, and geochronology. Pp. 453—479 in: Sulfate Minerals - Crystallography, Geochemistry and Environmental Significance (Alpers, C.N., Jambor, J.L. and Nordstrom, D.K., editors). Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry, 40. Mineralogical Society of America and the Geochemical Society, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Stromberg, B. and Banwart, S.A. (1999) Experimental study of acidity-consuming processes in mining waste rock: some influences of mineralogy and particle size. Applied Geochemistry, 14, 1—16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, J.C. (1991) Computer programs for standardless quantitative analysis of minerals using the full powder diffraction profile. Powder Diffraction 6, 2—9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walter, A.L., Frind, E.O., Blowes, D.W., Ptacek, C.J. and Molson, J.W. (1994) Modelling of multicomponent reactive transport in groundwater 1. Model development and evaluation. Water Resources Research, 30, 3137—3148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walther, J.V. (1996) Relation between rates of aluminosilicate mineral dissolution, pH, temperature and surface charge. American Journal of Science, 296, 693—728.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, M.A. and Rimstidt, J.D. (1994) The kinetics and electrochemical rate-determining step of aqueous pyrite oxidation. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 58, 5443—5454.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Younger, P.L. (2000) Predicting temporal changes in total iron concentrations in groundwaters flowing from abandoned deep mines: a first approximation. Journal of Contaminant Hydrology , 44, 47—69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhu, C., Hu, R.Q. and Burden, D.S. (2001) Multicomponent reactive transport modelling of natural attenuation of an acid groundwater plume at a uranium mill tailings site. Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, 52, 85—1008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar