Novel process to remediate land and water contaminated by Acid Mine Drainage, with a focus on South Africa

Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) refers to the acidic discharge generated at active or disused mining sites. The low pH of this discharge leads to the mobilisation of metals, often containing those classed as heavy metals such as Fe, Cd, or Mn. The acidity and elevated heavy metal content of AMD make it environmentally damaging, with the latter generally being considered more important.
AMD is generated by the oxidation of ferrous sulphide minerals, most commonly pyrite (FeS2), which is often enhanced by bacterial activity. While this process can occur naturally, human mining activity increases its rate by increasing the exposure of such minerals to air and water.
Conventional AMD remediation methods are typically chemical. The most common involves the addition of alkaline materials such as lime or limestone to increase the pH of AMD waters.This has the benefit of stimulating the oxidation of some metals, such as iron(II) and manganese(II), and the precipitation of dissolved metals under the form of hydroxides. Other conventional treatments include Anoxic Limestone Drains, membranes, and adsorption. The principal drawback with conventional methods is cost: clean-up of all AMD in the USA using such technologies has been estimated at $400bn. Furthermore, the generation of sludge presents a disposal issue.
Wetlands offer a cheaper alternative to AMD remediation. While exact definitions of wetlands vary, they may generally be described as areas where the soil is usually saturated with water or submerged. The complex interactions within wetlands derive from this confluence between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, and this allows them to play an important role in remediation of AMD. The main action of wetlands is reduction of heavy metal concentrations, which occurs through a number of mechanisms. These may be broadly classified as dilution, sorption to soil and sediment, precipitation and co-precipitation due to oxidation/reduction, and phytoremediation. This project will be concerned about phytoremediation, and in particular phytoextraction: the uptake of heavy metals by plants and the subsequent storage of these metals in their above-ground structure. If this is combined with harvesting of the contaminated shoots and leaves, the heavy metals can effectively be removed from the system.
The main aquatic plants species used in wetland phytoremediation, such as reeds and cattails9, are made up of lignocellulosic biomass. This makes them compatible with the ionoSolv process currently being developed by the Hallett Group. The ionoSolv process involves the pre-treatment of lignocellulosic biomass with ionic liquids (ILs), in order to fractionate the biomass into its three major components (cellulose, hemi-cellulose, and lignin). Specifically, the ionic liquids (PILs) dissolve the lignin and hemicellulose, leaving a cellulose-rich pulp. Separation and valorisation of these three natural polymers offers the possibility of a viable biorefinery process, especially following the development of effective and cheap protic Ionic Liquids (PILs). In particular, the delignification of the cellulose pulp often allows higher glucose yields to be achieved by enzymatic hydrolysis, from which bioethanol may be produced by fermentation. The process has been successfully applied to grasses, softwoods, and the particularly recalcitrant hardwoods. Furthermore, the process has been shown to work on heavy metal-contaminated biomass, with the ability to recover the metals from the IL remaining at the end of the process. This would be particularly applicable to heavily contaminated biomass grown on AMD, and would provide an extra product stream of significant value.