Tratamento biológico de drenagem ácida de minas (DAM) em reator anaeróbio de manta de lodo (UASB)

Abstract

Acid mine drainage (AMD) is a serious environmental problem from mining industries, because they have high loads sulfate, toxic elements and heavy metals that can cause disease in humans or cause death of aquatic life. Your generation occurs when sulphide minerals, mainly pyrite (FeS2), are oxidized in the presence of water, oxygen and bacteria, producing H+ ions. In order to get around the disadvantages of cost and low sulfate removal of the conventional treatment, studies have been made with different configurations of reactors for anaerobic biological treatment using the sulphate reducing bacteria (BRS). These convert the sulfate presente in the water, together with a carbon source (electron donor), producing H2S which is used for the precipitation of insoluble metals sulfides, in addition, naturally increase the pH to around neutral due to production . The reactor used in this work was a UASB (upflow anaerobic sludge blanket) with total capacity of 10 liters and was set up with 4.5 liters of liquid volume and 4.5 liters of granular biomass from a methanogenic reactor. Ethanol was used as a unique source of carbon and energy in the ratio COD/SO42- used of 1.0. The evaluation parameters of reactor operation were the volumetric sulfate loading (VSL), hydraulic retention time (HRT) and metals addition. The results indicate an increased mean removal sulfate of (48±13) % to (77±8) % when the HRT was changed to 16 h and CVS increased to 0,75 g l-1 d-1. By reducing the HRT to 12 h (VSL 3,00 g l-1 d-1), the sulfate removal reached (80±9) %. The removal of metals whose concentrations were 100 mg l-1 Fe2+, 20 mg l-1 Zn2+ and 5 mg l-1 Cu2+, were above 96% in all conditions evaluated. In 533 days of operation, the effluent pH was between (6.3±0.6), and the COD removal was (85±8) %. The analysis of the kinetic parameters sulfate removal proved quite satisfactory with a value of kap (2.8±0.6) h-1 for the HRT of 16h and VSL of 0,75 g l-1 d-1 with addition of Fe, Zn and Cu, and the best was (1622.0±267.8) mg l-1 h-1 when sulfate load was 1500 mg l-1 and HRT of 16 h with Fe, Zn and Cu added simultaneously.