Energy and environmental impact assessment of a passive remediation bioreactor for antimony-rich mine drainage
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Energy and environmental impact assessment of a passive remediation bioreactor for antimony-rich mine drainage Xiaoyu Wang 1,2 & Zengping Ning 3 & Weimin Sun 1,2 & Huaqing Liu 1,2 & Baoqin Li 1,2 Received: 29 January 2020 / Accepted: 19 June 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Industrial processes, such as smelting and mining, lead to antimony (Sb) contamination, which poses an environmental and human health risk. In this study, the energy consumption and environmental impacts of a passive biological treatment system were quantitatively evaluated using life cycle assessment (LCA), and the results were compared with that of an adsorption purification system. The results showed that the biosystem had a lower energy consumption compared with the adsorption system, with an energy savings of 27.39%. The environmental impacts of the bioreactor were also lower regarding acidification, ecotoxicity, carcinogens, climate change, resource depletion, and respiratory effects. The construction resulted in the most energy consumption (99%) for the passive bioreactor. Therefore, adopting environmentally friendly construction materials could make the biosystem a more energy-efficient option. Results demonstrated that the bioreactor in this research can have great potential for Sb mine drainage applications in terms of energy savings and environmental remediation without diminishing performance. The study findings can be useful for deciding the most energy effective process for mine drainage remediation. In addition, the identification of the energy and environmental impacts of the processes provide valuable information for the design of future systems that consume less materials and utilize new construction materials. Keywords Life cycle assessment (LCA) . Sb mine drainage remediation . Energy analysis . Environmental impacts . Passive biological treatment . Adsorption
Introduction Xiaoyu Wang and Zengping Ning contributed equally to this work. Responsible Editor: Philippe Loubet Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-09816-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Weimin Sun [email protected] 1
National-Regional Joint Engineering Research Center for Soil Pollution Control and Remediation in South China, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Integrated Agro-environmental Pollution Control and Management, Guangdong Institute of Eco-environmental Science & Technology, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, 808 Tianyuan Road, Guangzhou 510650, Guangdong, China
2
Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Joint Laboratory for Environmental Pollution and Control, 808 Tianyuan Road, Guangzhou 510650, Guangdong, China
3
China State Key Laboratory of Environmental Geochemistry, Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guiyang 550081, China
Antimony (Sb) is found in nature as the sulfide mineral stibnite and is widely used in industrial applications such as batteries and flame retardants (Anderson
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