Stabilities of heavy metals in soils treated with red mud

This paper discussed the stabilities of heavy metals in soils treated with red mud. Soil has been polluted by heavy metals more and more seriously during recent several decades, and they are harmful to mankind and animals. The current tendency is to develop in-situ technique by using industrial processing waste as additives to stabilized heavy metals to minimize the disturbance of contaminated soils. Soil samples were collected from the Niujiaotang mining area, Guizhou Province, southwestern China. They were farmed soils polluted weakly by fly ash （QBT） and polluted badly by waste water （BXT） from smelter, respectively. One of the red mud samples （BRM） was collected from Bayer process and the other （CRM） from confederate process in the Alumina Plant of Guizhou. Free metal ion concentrations were analyzed with Donnan Membrane Technique and predicted with ECOSAT. The concentrations of free heavy metal ions in QBT increased after appending CRM, but decreased when adding BRM. The more the red mud was added, the higher the concentration would be, and the free concentrations of nickel and cadmium ions would vary more greatly than those of copper and zinc ions. When appending red muds into BXT, the free concentrations of copper and zinc ions varied little. While those of free nickel and cadmium decreased obviously at the ratio of 2.00%. The variation of the concentration was still biggish after appending BRM at the ratio of 0.50%, but smaller than that of 2.00%. The concentrations of free cadmium ions increased after adding CRM at the ratio of 0.50%. All experimental processes were modeled through ECOSAT. The predicted and measured results were consistent, except for zinc. Contributions of soil sorbents to the heavy metal adsorptions were also modeled through ECOSAT. The sorbents in soil included soil organic matter, iron hydroxides, clay and the Donnan gel of soil organic matter. Compared to the soils without red muds, no matter what kind of red mud and how much was added in soil, the contributions changed slightly.

Stabilities of heavy metals in soils treated with red mud