3rd International Conference on Chemo and BioInformatics, Kragujevac, September 25-26. 2025. (pp. 202-205)
АУТОР(И) / AUTHOR(S): Vladimir Šaraba, Tatjana Trtić-Petrović, Dajana Lazarević, Jelena Jovanović, Milica Ciric, Ivana Jovanić
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DOI: 10.46793/ICCBIKG25.202S
САЖЕТАК / ABSTRACT:
Acid mine drainages (AMD) pose a serious threat, due to their potentially toxic metals content, which can pollute the environment and affect human, animal and plant health. The potential of natural pyrophyllite schist (Prl-sch) material from the Parsovići mine in Bosnia and Herzegovina for Hg removal from acid mine drainage (AMD) was tested. This AMD freely discharges from the abandoned cinnabar (HgS) mine Šuplja Stena, located on Mount Avala in Serbia. The sorption experiment was conducted in duplicate, involving the direct contact of 2 g of Prl-sch with 100 mL of native AMD sample for 2 h at room temperature with agitation of 200 rpm. Prl-sch used in this experiment was mechanochemically modified beforehand to obtain particles less than 0.45 μm in diameter. Concurrently, a control experiment with deionized water was run to determine if the Prl-sch itself releases Hg under the same experimental conditions. The Hg concentrations in native AMD, Prl-sch-treated AMD and control sample were measured by inductively coupled plasma – optical emission spectroscopy. The initial concentration of Hg in the native AMD sample was 9.3 μg/L, while in the control and Prl-sch-treated AMD sample Hg content was below the limit of quantification (<0.4 μg/L). The observed Hg removal efficiency and sorption capacity of Prl-sch from the Prl- sch-treated AMD sample was ˃95.7% and ˃0.4 μg/g, respectively. Mercury sulfides are poorly soluble in water, which could explain the initial low Hg content in the native AMD sample. In this experiment, Prl-sch demonstrated the exceptionally high potential for Hg removal, rendering this natural material a promising treatment for the purification of Hg-contaminated water environments.
КЉУЧНЕ РЕЧИ / KEYWORDS:
abandoned mines; mine water; potentially toxic metals; environmetal pollution; natural remediation.
ПРОЈЕКАТ / ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:
This research is funded by the Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia (grant agreement No: 451-03-136/2025-03/200017) and project Eco-Friendly Hydrometallurgy for Rare Earths Recycling, FREECOVER (101182579). Also, we would like to thank Mr. Muhamed Harbinja, Mr. Igor Marković and Mrs. Enita Kurtanović from AD HARBI d.o.o., Sarajevo for pyrophyllite schist sample.
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