A Chemical Analysis of Acid Mine Drainage using Pervious Concrete as a Filtering Medium

Abstract

The present report discussed the chemical analysis of acid mine drainage, when pervious concrete is used as a treatment medium of AMD. Acid mine drainage (AMD) is an acidic water that outflows from the abandoned mines, AMD is made up of Iron, Manganese, Calcium, Sulphur, Aluminium and Neon. The shortage of water in South Africa has drawn many interests to publishers to find ways to treat AMD. It was found that pervious concrete has the potential to reduce metal concentration in AMD. A number of concrete cubes were cast to investigate the impact of thickness, stone size and water to cement ratio in the treatment of AMD. These variables were investigated using constant head permeability test. The purpose of the test was to test the various combinations of properties of the pervious concrete on the response, which is the relative metal concentrate removal from the AMD samples. The pervious concrete cubes were constructed using dolomite stone. the results show that granite aggregate have better AMD treatment qualities compared to dolomite, and the results shows that the flow distance have an influence on PH of AMD as it flows through the pervious concrete.