RT Journal Article
T1 Towards circular and sustainable restoration of a deeply polluted river basin: The Odiel River catchment (SW Spain)
A1 Millán Becerro, Ricardo
A1 León Cortegano, Rafael
A1 Romero Matos, Jonatan
A1 Moreno González, Raúl
A1 Pérez López, Rafael
A1 Romero Matos, Jonatan
AB The Ría de Huelva estuary located in SW Spain is heavily polluted by acid mine drainage leachates and phosphatefertilizer industry effluents. This study assesses the effectiveness of a solid waste rich in calcite originatedduring the remediation of industrial effluents using the passive dispersed alkaline substrate (DAS) technology, forthe treatment of highly acid and polluted mine drainages. The research consists of flowing the mine leachatesthrough a column loaded with a combination of an alkaline reagent (i.e., calcite-rich waste resulting from thetreatment of industrial leachates) scattered in a non-reactive matrix (i.e., wood chips) to increase the pH of acidicwater while decreasing the solubility of dissolved pollutants. The alkaline treatment achieved average removalpercentages of 100 % for Al and Fe, and close to 90 % for Cu. However, the treatment was not effective for othermetals present in mine drainages such as Co and Ni. These results are comparable to those achieved in the DAStreatment with commercial limestone. The precipitation of oxyhydroxysulfates (i.e., schwertmannite and basaluminite)and carbonates (i.e., malachite and hydrozincite) minerals could be controlling the solubility of pollutantsduring the treatment. The solid wastes from the DAS treatment were subjected to two standardizedleaching tests (EN 12457-2 from the European Union and toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) from the United States) in order to ensure suitable management and avoid potential environmental impacts. Accordingto European Union legislation, the high mobility of Cu, Zn and SO4 confers some solid wastes from the DAStreatment the hazardous waste classification. However, according to United States regulation, these same solidsare considered non-hazardous wastes. This research could help to improve the environmental sustainability ofacid mine drainage treatment with DAS technology by replacing marketable limestone with a low-cost alkalinewaste.
PB Elsevier
SN 0048-9697
SN 1879-1026 (electrónico)
YR 2023
FD 2023-10
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10272/23269
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10272/23269
LA eng
NO Millán-Becerro, R., León, R., Romero-Matos, J., Moreno-González, R., & Pérez-López, R. (2024). Towards circular and sustainable restoration of a deeply polluted river basin: The Odiel River catchment (SW Spain). In Science of The Total Environment (Vol. 907, p. 168078). Elsevier BV. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.168078
NO This work is supported by the I+D+i TRAMPA project (PID2020-119196RB-C21) and the RESTOREHU project (TED2021-130361B-I00), funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ and the European Union “nextGenerationEU”/PRTR. Jonatan Romero is financed by a FPU program of the Spanish Ministry of Education of Vocational Training (FPU20/04441). Raúl Moreno-González also thanks the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, the Spanish State Research Agency and the European Union “nextGenerationEU” for the Postdoctoral Fellowship granted under application references FJC2021-047600-I. Ricardo Millán Becerro also acknowledges the Spanish Ministry of Universities for the Margarita Salas Research Grant. We would also like to thank Dr. Damià Barceló (Co-Editor-in-Chief) and two anonymous reviewers for the support and comments that significantly improved the quality of the original paper.
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 1 jun 2026