Authors:
Juan Zhong
1
;
2
;
3
;
4
;
Xiaokui Che
2
;
3
;
4
;
Xinglan Cui
3
;
4
;
Hongxia Li
3
;
4
;
Qidong Zhang
3
;
4
;
Lei Wang
3
;
4
;
Qi Zheng
3
;
4
and
Xuewu Hu
3
;
4
;
5
Affiliations:
1
GRIMAT Engineering Institute Co., Ltd., Beijing, 101407, China
;
2
GRINM Group Corporation Limited, Beijing 100088, China
;
3
GRINM Resources and Environment Tech. Co., Ltd., Beijing, 101407, China
;
4
National Engineering Laboratory of Biohydrometallurgy, GRINM Group Co., Ltd., Beijing, 100088, China
;
5
School of Metallurgical and Ecological Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, 100083, China
Keyword(s):
Antimony Mining Area, Bioremediation, Sulfate-Reducing Bacteria, Arsenic.
Abstract:
The contamination of antimony (Sb) and arsenic (As) in the soil of antimony mining area is the most common pollutant. Metal sulfide precipitation by sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) is considered to be a promising method. In this work, antimony and arsenic contaminated soil from an antimony mining area was treated by the application of a mixed culture of SRB. The soil samples initially contained the concentration of 17550 mg/kg Sb and 3231 mg/kg As, and the leaching concentration exceeds the groundwater IV standard. Changes of Eh, pH, aqueous Sb and as were monitored over 50 days in this experiment. The results indicated that SRB was able to increase the pH value and decrease the redox potential of the solution. When the SRB was growing well in the system, the high concentration of Sb in the solution was reduced from 7.8 mg/L to less than 0.5 mg/L. However, As showed a completely opposite trend to antimony. The presence of SRB can promote the release of as from contaminated soil, and
the concentration of As will gradually decrease when the activity of SRB decreased. This work demonstrates that SRB can trigger the release of Sb, while as caused the opposite effect.
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