Acid drainage is an environmental problem, not exclusive, but commonly associated to coal mines. It arises from the oxidation of sulfides, like pyrite, in overburden and mining tailings. The use of ashes from coal combustion is still limited in Brazil, but such residues have a potential use as neutralizing agent for acid mine drainage. This study intended to evaluate the interaction between the use of coal ash and CaCO3 to neutralize acid drainage from pyrite oxidation in coal mining overburden […]

This work was carried out to study methods of sulfide analysis to obtain a fast, accurate and reproducible procedure to evaluate acid drainage in samples of rocks and sediments.The samples were submitted to oxidative digestions with H2O2 and nitric-hydrochloric acid solutions (3:1, v/v).The S in the extracts was determined by gravimetry, atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS) for remaining Ba, turbidimetry and colorimetry.The Fe and Pb contents in the extracts were determined by AAS.Acidity was also determined by titration with NaOH in […]