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Água ácida de mina em Mina de São Domingos, Mértola, Portugal

BIOMETAL DEMO

Project Summary

The BIOMETAL DEMO project aimed to demonstrate the feasibility of using innovative biotechnologies for treating metal-contaminated wastewater. This was achieved through laboratory-scale studies and tests at a pilot plant constructed and installed at the São Domingos Mine.

Estação Piloto para tratamento de água ácida de mina, localizada em Mina de São Domingos

Project Activities

Heavy metal pollution is one of the most important environmental problems today even threatening human life. A large number of industries produce and discharge wastes containing different heavy metals into the environment and do not comply with current EU directives. BIOMETAL DEMO project aimed at demonstrating the feasibility of the application of novel biotechnologies for the treatment of metal polluted wastewaters though the development of pilot plants to be implemented in two metal polluting representative industries. Actual metal treatment technologies implemented in polluting industries fail to comply with the reduction of metal concentration required by the EU for wastewater treatments. For this reason, new technologies were developed to overcome this problem. The biotechnologies evaluated in BIOMETAL DEMO project were: metal bioprecipitation by sulphate-reducing bacteria (SRB) and immobilized phytase biocatalysis, and metal biosorption on agricultural industry by-products and biopolymers such as alginate & chitosan based materials. At CCMAR the focus was to optimize SRB based processes.  After the evaluation of these techniques, optimized bioprocess were selected to design and build two demonstration pilot plants for scaling-up the metal removal biotreatment. The feasibility of the application of the selected bioprocesses were explored at pilot plant scale in acid mine drainage and electroplating wastewaters contaminated with heavy metals. The operations were be monitored and optimized, and the kinetics and the performance of the metal removal/recovery bioprocess were integrated within the pilot demonstration plants. Finally, economic, social and technical analysis of the benefits of such tertiary biotreatments of metal polluted industrial wastewater were carried out for the corresponding and related industrial sectors across EU.

The goals at CCMAR were:

- To develop, at a laboratory scale, a tertiary biological process based on the capabilities of sulphate-reducing bacteria (SRB) as a final polishing step to integrate the treatment of metal wastewaters resulting from different sources (e.g. mining, plating), permitting the reuse of the treated waters for irrigation.

- To use SRB communities simply enriched from environmental samples and using natural and locally available wastes, which also need to be subjected to treatment, as sources of nutrients, resulting in a simple, efficient, and low-cost technology.

- Optimization and technical improvement of the bioprecipitation process (using SRB) at pilot scale, in order to contribute to its industrial scale implementation.

Publications

Articles in Scientific Journals:

Carlier JD, Luís AT, Alexandre LM, Costa MC (2020b) Feasibility of Co-treating Olive Mill Wastewater and Acid Mine Drainage. Mine Water and the Environment. 39: 859-880. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10230-020-00719-1

Carlier JD, Alexandre LM, Luís AT, Costa MC (2019a) Potential of industrial by-products and wastes from the Iberian Peninsula as carbon sources for sulphate-reducing bacteria. International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology. 16: 4719-4738. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-018-02197-z

Ballester A, Castro L, Costa MC, Carlier J, García-Roig M, Pérez-Galende P, Alvarez A, Bertagnolli C, Guibal E (2017) Design of remediation pilot plants for the treatment of industrial metal-bearing effluents (BIOMETAL DEMO project): Lab tests. Hydrometallurgy. 168: 103-115. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hydromet.2016.10.010

Oral Communications

Carlier JD, Luís AT, Alexandre LM, Costa MC (2020c) Feasibility of Co-treating Olive Mill Wastewater and Acid Mine Drainage. 2020 CCMAR Symposium, Centre of Marine Sciences of the Algarve (CCMAR). December 18. Online Zoom.

Carlier JD, Ferreira H, Costa MC (2017a) Pilot plant at São Domingos mine for the biological treatment of acid mine drainage. 4th Interdisciplinary Day at the São Domingos Mine: Mines, technologies and education: convergences (4ª Jornada Interdisciplinar da Mina de São Domingos: Minas, tecnologias e educação: convergências). 24th November, São Domingos mine, Portugal.

Alexandre LM, Carlier JD, Luís AT, Costa MC (2016) Screening of industrial sub-products as alternative carbon sources to sustain the growth and activity of sulphate-reducing bacteria – Part II. 11th conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems – SDEWES. 4-9 September. Lisbon, Portugal.

Anucha CB, Alexandre LM, Carlier JD, Luís AT, Costa MC (2016) Batch tests to access the efficiency of beetroot and orange molasses as sources of nutrients to sustain bioremediation processes for acid mine drainage. 3rd International Congress on Water, Waste and Energy Management (EWWM). 18-20 July. Rome, Italy.

Carlier JD, Costa MC (2015b) Projetos de investigação envolvendo o tratamento de águas ácidas da mina de São Domingos (Research projects involving acidic water treatment at the São Domingos mine). II Jornadas Interdisciplinares Mina de São Domingos: Minas, Tecnologias e Educação: Convergências. 4th December 2015. Mina de São Domingos, Portugal.

Carlier JD, Luís AT, Costa MC (2015a) Screening of industrial sub-products as alternative carbon sources to sustain the growth and activity of sulphate-reducing bacteria. 10th conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems – SDEWES. 27 September – 2 October. Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Carlier JD, Barros RJ, Costa MC (2014) Testing Sulphate Reducing Bacteria for the bioremediation of metal-contaminated wastewaters with relatively low sulphate concentrations. International Congress on Green Chemistry and Sustainable Engineering. 29 – 31 July. Barcelona, Spain.

Pedagogical material published on massive dissemination platforms

A short movie was produced by Amir Nobahar, Jorge Dias Carlier and Maria Clara Costa, about work at a pilot plant designed, constructed and tested in the scope of projects BIOMETALDEMO and METALCHEMBIO was published in YOUTUBE: English version (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTcw6MkuWL4).

CCMAR Members

Funding agencies

Comissão Europeia