Chemical characterisation of natural organic substrates for biological mitigation of acid mine drainage

The current approach of the biological treatment of acid mine drainage by means of a passive remediation system involves the choice of an appropriate organic substrate as electron donor for sulphate reducers. Nowadays this selection is one of the critical steps in the performance of such treatment, as this depends to a great extent on the degradability of the organic substrate. Thus, a prior characterisation of the organic substrate predicting its biodegradability would be desirable before embarking on an extensive large-scale application. The aim of this study was to correlate the chemical composition (lignin content) of four different natural organic substrates (compost, sheep and poultry manures, oak leaf) and their capacity to sustain bacterial activity in an attempt to predict biodegradation from chemical characterisation. The results showed that the lower the content of lignin in the organic substrate, the higher its biodegradability and capacity for developing bacterial activity. Of the four organic materials, sheep and poultry manures and oak leaf evolved reducing conditions and sustained active sulphidogenesis, which coupled with the decrease in sulphate concentration indicated bacterial activity. Sheep manure was clearly the most successful organic material as electron donor (sulphate removal >99%), followed by poultry manure and oak leaf (sulphate removal of 80%). Compost appeared to be too poor in carbon to promote sulphate-reducing bacteria activity by itself. Column experiments emphasised the importance of considering the residence time as a key factor in the performance of continuous systems. With a residence time of 0.73 days, sheep manure did not promote sulphidogenesis. However, extending residence time to 2.4 and 9.0 days resulted in an increase in the sulphate removal to 18% and 27%, respectively.