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Origin of middle rare earth element enrichment in acid mine drainage-impacted areas

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Abstract

The commonly observed enrichment of middle rare earth elements (MREE) in water sampled in acid mine drainage (AMD)-impacted areas was found to be the result of preferential release from the widespread mineral pyrite (FeS2). Three different mining-impacted sites in Europe were sampled for water, and various pyrite samples were used in batch experiments with diluted sulphuric acid simulating AMD-impacted water with high sulphate concentration and high acidity. All water samples independent on their origin from groundwater, creek water or lake water as well as on the surrounding rock types showed MREE enrichment. Also the pyrite samples showed MREE enrichment in the respective acidic leachate but not always in their total contents indicating a process-controlled release. It is discussed that most probably complexation to sulphite (SO3 2−) or another intermediate S-species during pyrite oxidation is the reason for the MREE enrichment in the normalized REE patterns.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the project “Umbrella” funded by the EU (FP7-ENV-2008-1 no. 226870) under the coordination of E. Kothe (Friedrich Schiller University Jena) for financial support. Further, we thank I. Kamp, G. Rudolph and G. Weinzierl (all Friedrich Schiller University Jena) for ICP-OES, DOC and IC measurements, as well as all partners within the Umbrella project, especially the Swedish group (B. Allard, M. Bäckström, S. Karlsson, V. Sjöberg; University of Örebro) and the Romanian group (A. Neagoe, V. Iordache; University of Bucharest) for enabling access to the field sites and supporting us during field work, and G. De Giudici (University of Cagliari) for helpful comments. We also thank an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments improving the manuscript once more. Furthermore, we are grateful to A. Kötschau (Friedrich Schiller University Jena) for support on statistical analysis, as well as B. Kreher-Hartmann from the Mineralogical Collection of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, S. Meißner and M. Riefenstahl for providing further mineral samples and F. Schäffner (Friedrich Schiller University Jena) as well as P. T. Stancu (University of Bucharest) for their help during field work.

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  1. Institute of Geosciences, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Burgweg 11, 07749, Jena, Germany

    Anja Grawunder, Dirk Merten & Georg Büchel

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  1. Anja Grawunder
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Correspondence to Anja Grawunder.

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Grawunder, A., Merten, D. & Büchel, G. Origin of middle rare earth element enrichment in acid mine drainage-impacted areas. Environ Sci Pollut Res 21, 6812–6823 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-013-2107-x

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