Multicomponent reactive transport modeling of acid neutralization reactions in mine tailings

Abstract

Multicomponent reactive transport modeling was conducted to analyze and quantify the acid neutralization reactions observed in a column experiment. Experimental results and the experimental procedures have been previously published. The pore water geochemistry was described by dissolution and precipitation reactions involving primary and secondary mineral phases. The initial amounts of the primary phases ankerite‐dolomite, siderite, chlorite, and gypsum were constrained by mineralogical analyses of the tailings sample used in the experiment. Secondary gibbsite was incorporated into the model to adequately explain the changes in pH and concentration changes of Al in the column effluent water. The results of the reactive transport modeling show that the pH of the column effluent water can be explained by dissolution reactions of ankerite‐dolomite, siderite, chlorite, and secondary gibbsite. The modeling results also show that changes in Eh can be explained by dissolution of ferrihydrite during the experiment. In addition, the modeling results show that the kinetically limited dissolution of chlorite contributes the largest mass of dissolved Mg and Fe (II) in the effluent water, followed by ankerite‐dolomite, which contributes substantially less. In summary, reactive transport modeling based on detailed geochemical and mineralogical data was successful to quantitatively describe the changes in pH and major ions in the column effluent.