Abstract
The barren water from a hydrometallugical process at the RPM Gold Mine averages 100 mg/L of total cyanide, 20 mg/L of arsenic, and has a pH of 9.2. Treatment objectives were to reduce to the total cyanide and arsenic concentration to below 50 and 5 mg/L respectively. The concentration of copper in the water is 50 mg/L suggesting that most of the cyanide exists in the complexed form. A bench-scale passive treatment study was conducted that emphasized the use of common sulfate-reducing bacteria reactors (SRBR) for the elimination of the cyanide. For removal of the arsenic, zero valent iron (ZVI), and native lateritic soils were used in combination with the SRBRs. For total cyanide, the SRBRs reduced the concentrations to below 10 mg/L and those reactors with ZVI reduced the cyanide to an average of 5 mg/L. For arsenic, the SRBRs reduced concentrations to between 1.0 to 6.0 mg/L and the SRBRs with ZVI showed the best removal. The lateritic soils worked well in the beginning to lower the pH and to remove cyanide and arsenic. However, their removal ability became exhausted over the course of the six month study. The results show that a passive treatment system using SRBRs in combination with ZVI would be effective as a primary method for removal of cyanide and arsenic from processing waters Additional
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