Long-Term Solutions to Acid Producing Coal Mine Spoils Using Industrial Wastes

利用工业废物解决煤矿产酸弃渣问题的长期解决方案

• 批准号: 1236403
• 负责人: Xu Liang
• 金额: $ 33.37万
• 依托单位: University of Pittsburgh
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-09-15 至 2018-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1236403&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Long; Term; Solutions; Acid; Producing

1236403 (Liang). Around the world, mining exposes fresh mineral surfaces that have never been in contact with the atmosphere and often creates oxidation enabled pollution. Historically, the mining industry has utilized the target mineral and dumped materials deemed not useful as ?refuse piles? that often became small mountains that produce acid discharges. These discharges are commonly manifested in the Appalachian region of the USA as acid mine runoff that has become prevalent since coal mining became a major industry over 100 years ago. Not only are these acid discharges environmentally damaging to watersheds, the coal refuse piles themselves are barren lands that are virtually useless, as game, forest, or agricultural lands. Such legacy mining issues are a blight and have one of the most detrimental environmental impacts in the Appalachian region where metal compounds from the refuse piles, including ferric and ferrous iron, aluminum, and manganese (sulfate and chloride as the most common counter-ions), are continuously leached from these coal refuse piles and/or abandoned coal mines causing the acid mine drainage (AMD). The produced AMD deteriorates water quality throughout a watershed by decreasing the pH in soil pore water and river flow. AMD has not only been a significant environmental problem in the coal production Appalachian regions in the US, but also will certainly become a significant and harmful environmental problem in the coal production regions around the world as coal is used as one of the most inexpensive forms of energy to power the ever increasing world population. Therefore, it is necessary to have an economically sound and technically effective long-lasting approach to deal with the AMD problem. This research project addresses this need using an industrial ecology based approach to mix the surface materials of these refuse piles with brown mud, a residual of Bauxite processing from aluminum manufacturing. In this project, an objective is to determine the longevity and permanence of this industrial ecology-based remediation approach, as many previous remediation efforts fail over time due to eventual loss of alkaline material to neutralize the ever ongoing acid production via iron oxidation. Using such a combined approach to investigate the long-term effectiveness of the new industrial ecology-based remediation approach is critically important because this new technology has the potential to be installed at a mass scale with costs that may be minimal in comparison to the widespread installation of active treatment systems. Therefore, at the watershed scale, this type of technology may lead to a paradigm shift in AMD remediation strategy.

1236403(梁)。在世界各地，采矿暴露出从未与大气接触过的新鲜矿物表面，往往会造成氧化污染。从历史上看，采矿业一直将被认为无用的目标矿物和倾倒材料用作垃圾堆？这些地方往往会变成产生酸排放的小山。这些排放在美国阿巴拉契亚地区通常表现为酸性矿井径流，自100多年前煤炭开采成为主要工业以来，这种径流已经变得普遍。这些酸排放不仅破坏了流域的环境，而且煤渣堆本身也是贫瘠的土地，几乎毫无用处，比如猎物、森林或农田。这类遗留的采矿问题是阿巴拉契亚地区最有害的环境影响之一，在该地区，来自垃圾堆的金属化合物，包括铁和亚铁、铝和锰(最常见的反离子是硫酸盐和氯化物)，不断从这些煤渣堆和/或废弃煤矿中浸出，导致酸性矿井排水(AMD)。产生的AMD会降低土壤孔隙水和河流的pH值，从而使整个流域的水质恶化。AMD不仅是美国阿巴拉契亚地区煤炭生产的一个严重的环境问题，而且肯定会成为世界各地煤炭生产地区的一个严重和有害的环境问题，因为煤炭被用作最便宜的能源之一，为不断增长的世界人口提供动力。因此，有必要有一个经济上合理和技术上有效的长效方法来处理AMD问题。这项研究项目利用基于工业生态的方法，将这些垃圾堆的表面材料与褐泥混合在一起，褐泥是铝业铝土矿加工的残留物，以满足这一需求。在这个项目中，一个目标是确定这种基于工业生态的修复方法的寿命和持久性，因为许多以前的修复努力随着时间的推移而失败，因为最终会失去碱性材料，以中和通过铁氧化产生的酸。使用这种综合方法来调查新的基于工业生态的补救方法的长期有效性至关重要，因为这项新技术有可能大规模安装，与广泛安装主动处理系统相比，成本可能最低。因此，在分水岭尺度上，这种类型的技术可能会导致AMD补救战略的范式转变。