Jarosite-related chemical processes and water ecotoxicity in simplified anaerobic microcosm wetlands

Abstract

Simulation experiments were conducted to examine whether jarosite is decomposed and toxic products are produced under anaerobic microcosm wetland conditions. The results show that jarosite was stable under water inundation in the microcosm wetland for a period of at least 56 days when no organic substance was added. However, jarosite became increasingly unstable with increasing amount of added organic matter. This resulted in entry of ferrous Fe into the soil solutions. Concentration of other heavy metals in the leachates was extremely low except for Mn. This is attributed to the maintenance of a high pH in the microcosm wetlands, which might cause re-precipitation of originally jarosite-borne heavy metals, if any. No acute toxicity was observed for leachate from the control (non organic matter-added treatment). However, leachates from various organic matter-added treatments show varying degrees of toxicity to the test organism and soluble Fe was likely to be the dominant metal of potential toxicity. Atmospheric exposure of leachate led to oxidation of ferrous Fe and precipitation of iron hydroxide, which caused a drop in leachate pH. This, in turn, inhibited further oxidation of ferrous Fe.