Charles Explorer logo
🇬🇧

Attenuation of dissolved metals in neutral mine drainage in the Zambian Copperbelt

Publication at Faculty of Science |
2011

Abstract

Behaviour of metals like Cu and Co was studied in nearly neutral (pH GREATER-THAN OR EQUAL TO 6.4) mine drainage seepage in a stream downgradient of a tailing dam at Chambishi site in the Copperbelt of Zambia. They are attenuated by precipitation of ferruginous ochres that incorporate significant quantities of metals.

Using chemical analysis, X-ray powder diffraction and Mössbauer spectroscopy, we show that the ochres are composed mostly of amorphous ferric hydroxide.