Study And Analysis of a Full-Scale Laboratory Successive Alkalinity Producing System for Iron Removal During the Treatment of Acid Mine Drainage

Abstract

The Successive Alkalinity Producing System (SAPS) is widely accepted for the treatment of acid mine drainage (AMD). The effectiveness of SAPS depends upon many parameters such as hydraulic retention time (HRT), influent quality, characteristics of organic substrate and their design aspects etc. In this laboratory SAPS column study, four synthetic AMD solutions were treated for 1 day, 2 days, 4 days, 7 days and 10 days HRTs to determine the performances of SAPS using cow compost as organic substrate, saw dust and lime stone in parallel in identical conditions. In this research, studies were carried out to find the effect of hydraulic retention time on iron removal and alkalinity generation by laboratory SAPS. The current results reveal that 100% iron a removal has been found. Higher rate of alkalinity generation was observed in initial reaction period; then it got slower down after passage of time. The encouraging results obtained on performance of laboratory scale set up of AMD is useful for large scale implementation in mines for treating AMD influent mine water and for design of various component of SAPS for its optimum performance.