Uranium pollution in an estuary affected by pyrite acid mine drainage and releases of naturally occurring radioactive materials     

Villa M  Manjón G  Hurtado S  García-Tenorio R 《Marine pollution bulletin》2011,62(7):1521-1529

After the termination of phosphogypsum discharges to the Huelva estuary (SW Spain), a unique opportunity was presented to study the response of a contaminated environmental compartment after the cessation of its main source of pollution. The evolution over time of uranium concentrations in the estuary is presented to supply new insights into the decontamination of a scenario affected by Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM) discharges. The cleaning of uranium isotopes from the area has not taken place as rapidly as expected due to leaching from phosphogypsum stacks.An in-depth study using various techniques of analysis, including ²³⁴U/²³⁸U and ²³⁰Th/²³²Th ratios and the decreasing rates of the uranium concentration, enabled a second source of uranium contamination to be discovered. Increased uranium levels due to acid mine drainage from pyrite mines located in the Iberian Pyrite Belt (SW Spain) prevent complete uranium decontamination and, therefore, result in levels nearly twice those of natural background levels.  相似文献   

Water contamination and remedial measures at the Troya abandoned Pb-Zn mine (The Basque Country, Northern Spain)   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

V. Iribar  F. Izco  P. Tames  I. Antigüedad  A. da Silva 《Environmental Geology》2000,39(7):800-806

 This article describes a case of contamination of a karstic aquifer by abandoning an underground mine exploiting sulphide ore body. To exploit the ore, the aquifer was drained and the water level declined about 230 m, drying up the spring that had drained the aquifer up to that moment. When the mining activity ceased, the piezometric level recovered and contaminated water began to flow out from a mine adit. The water is high in sulphates and dissolved Fe, although the pH is neutral. When this water reached the nearby creek, the fish population was eliminated, principally due to the presence of toxic metals and the precipitation of Fe hydroxides. The contamination originated in an area of the partially flooded mine rooms where the ore is in contact with both air and water. The acidity generated by pyrite oxidation is neutralized by calcite dissolution. Presently, the mine water is diverted to the old tailings pond which functions as an aerobic wetland. This action has allowed the fish population in the creek to be restored. Received: 20 January 1999 · Accepted: 15 March 1999  相似文献   

Phytoremediation of Cadmium‐Contaminated Soil by Two Jerusalem Artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus L.) Genotypes     

Zhenhua Zhang  Rengel Zed  Zhaopu Liu  Hongbo Shao 《洁净——土壤、空气、水》2013,41(2):202-209

Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus L.) can be used not just for bioethanol production, bur potentially also for soil phytoremediation via removal of heavy metal pollutants. An experiment was carried out to characterize the phytoextraction efficiency of two Jerusalem artichoke genotype (NY2 and NY5) in cadmium (Cd) contaminated soil. After 90 days of growth, NY5 had greater plant biomass and greater Cd accumulation in tissues than NY2. The chlorophyll content and chlorophyll a fluorescence parameters were slightly higher when plants were grown in Cd‐contaminated versus control soil. It implies that this examined NY2 and NY5 can extract more Cd than some hyperaccumulators, indicating that NY2 and NY5 can be applied to clean up Cd‐contaminated soils. Compared with NY2, NY5 had higher phytoextraction potential due to more biomass and higher concentrations of Cd in tissues, and may therefore be the better candidates for phytoremediation in Cd‐contaminated soil.  相似文献   

Mathematical prediction of lead removal from carbonate-rich illite     

R. S. Li  R. N. Yong  L. Y. Li   《Engineering Geology》2001,60(1-4):159-171

The interaction between heavy metal contaminants and surface forces associated with the reactive surfaces of soil particles was studied with the aim of developing an analytical tool that would permit the prediction of heavy metal and soil sorption–desorption phenomena. The predictive model developed in this study considers the energy of the interaction developed between a lead contaminant and illitic soil. Since these energy calculations include both inner and outer sphere complexes, energy balance requirements can be realistically evaluated with respect to environmental mobility. For a comparison between the calculated values obtained from the predictive model and experimentally obtained measurements, laboratory batch equilibrium tests and electro–kinetic tests were used. These were concerned with the sorption–desorption determination of illitic soil samples with the lead contaminant in the form of a lead nitrate solution. The force balance of lead ions indicates that lead ions in the so-called Stern layer, i.e. the first two layers of a water molecule, are non-removable. Good correlations between calculated and measured values were obtained.  相似文献