Abstract:
Acid mine drainage (AMD) is a major environmental problem associated
with mining activities. There are several methods to remediate these mine drainage
by neutralizing and removing metals from solutions. Those mechanisms can be
mainly divided into active or passive systems, which this study describes the
utilization of aquatic plants abundant in tropical conditions, in line with the passive
remediation technique known as phytoremediation. The plants were selected based
on the survivability in the tropical conditions and efficiency of extracting metals.
Eichhorniacrassipes(Water Hyacinth) was the most survivable plant, and was
deployed to absorb Fe, Cu and Cd from solutions reflecting the generic
characteristics of mine drainage. The drainage solutions were created, with
increasing concentrations of each ion starting from the permissible threshold values
in accordance to the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. The results
reflect that the efficiency of phytoremediation process with Water Hyacinth was
optimum when the solutions were neutral (pH ~ 7) and deteriorating under acidic
conditions (i.e. pH<7).
Citation:
Dassanayake, D.M.S.M., Pushpakumara, K.B.N., Sampath, R.P.S., Prabhanga, U.B., Senanayake, I.P., & Jayawardena, C.L. (2015). Phytoremediation of heavy metals in mine drainage by tropical aquatic plants. In P.V.A. Hemalal (Ed.), Proceedings of the 9th Annual ERE Research Conference on Earth Resources Management (pp. 64-69). Department of Earth Resources Engineering, University of Moratuwa.
