Acid Mine Drainage Research in Gauteng Highlighting Impacts on Infrastructure and Innovation of Concrete-Based Remedial Systems

Acid mine drainage (AMD) is presently one of the most important environmental problems in in the densely populated Gauteng Province, South Africa. The threat of acid mine drainage has demanded short-term interventions (some of which are being implemented by government) but more importantly sustainable long-term innovative solutions. There have been moments of public apprehension with some media reports dubbing the current scenario as a future 'nightmare of biblical proportions' and 'South Africa's own Chernobyl' that could cause dissolving of concrete foundations of buildings and reinforcement steel, leading to collapse of structures. In response to the needs of local and provincial authorities, this research was conducted to (1) generate scientific understanding of the effects of AMD on infrastructure materials and structures, and (2) propose innovative long-term remedial systems based on cementitious materials for potential AMD treatment applications of engineering scale. Two AMD solutions from the goldfields and two others from the coalfields were used to conduct corrosion immersion tests on mild steel, stainless steel, mortars, pastes and concretes. Results show that AMD water from the gold mines is more corrosive than that from the coal mines, the corrosion rate of the former being about twice that of the latter. The functionality of metal components of mild steel can be expected to fail within one month of exposure to the mine water. The investigation has also led to development of a pervious concrete filter system of water-cement ratio = 0.27 and cement content = 360 kg/m3, to be used as a permeable reactive barrier for AMD treatment. Early results show that the system was effective in removing heavy metal contaminants with removal levels of 30% SO4, 99% Fe, 50-83% Mn, 85% Ca, and 30% TDS. Further work is on-going to improve and optimise the system prior to field demonstration studies.