Environmental Properties of Minerals and Contaminants Purified by the Mineralogical Method

The investigation of the environmental properties of minerals, i.e., environmental mineralogy, is a branch of science dealing with interactions between natural minerals and spheres of the Earth surface as well as a reflection of global change, prevention of ecological destruction, participation in biomineralogy, and remediation of environmental pollution. Pollutant treatment by natural minerals is based on the natural law and reflects natural self-purification functions in the inorganic world, similar to that of the organic world - a biological treatment. A series of case studies related to natural self-purification, which were mostly completed by our group, are discussed in this paper. In natural cryptomelane there is a larger pseudotetragonal tunnel than that formed by [MnO6] octahedral double chains, with an aperture of 0.462-0.466 nm2, filled with K cations. Cryptomelane might be a real naturally-occurring mineral of the active octahedral molecular sieve (OMS-2). CrⅥ-bearing wastewater can be treated by natural pyrrhotite, which is used as a reductant to reduce CrⅥ and as a precipitant to precipitate CrⅢ simultaneously. Batch experiments were conducted using the CTMAB-Montmorillonite as an adsorbent for aromatic contaminants (phenol, aniline, benzene, toluene and xylenes), which are detected frequently in the leaching water from municipal waste deposits around China. The CTMAB modification has proved very effective to enhance the adsorption capacity of the sorbent. Expansion of vermiculite develops loose interior structures, such as pores or cracks, inside briquettes, and thus brings enough oxygen for combustion and the sulfation reaction. Effective combustion of the original carbon reduces the amount of dust in the fly ash.

Environmental Effects of Micro- and Ultra-microchannel Structures of Natural Minerals

The micro-channels usually refers to structural channels of minerals with aperture in the range of 0.3 nm to 2.0 nm. Such microchannels include, Mn-O octahedron channel filled by K in cryptomelane, and channel constructed by Si-O and AI-O tetragonal molecular sieve filled by Na and Ca in zeolite, and effectively have the function of molecular sieve. Here we point out that ultramicrochannels of natural minerals have apertures below 0.3 nm with the features of ionic sieves. The ultra-microchannels of mineral feldspar, accounting for half mass of the Earth＇s crust, have been largely ignored because the aperture is too small. In this work, we present that feldspar displays a certain degree of ion exchange and owns a feature of channel structure under both high and low temperatures. At high temperature, Na^＋ can enter the channels of feldspars. The content of Na2O in feldspar increases up to 15.9%. At middle temperature, Pb^2＋ can also enter the channels of feldspar as the result of ion exchange, leading thus to the formation of Pb-feldspar. At room temperature, about 97.94% Cd^2＋ can be removed and Cd-feldspar can be obtained. These phenomena indicate typical effects of ultra-microchannels of feldspar, which may be suggested as a potential for the treatment of heavy metal pollution and nuclear waste. The ultra-microchannels of natural minerals have played special role in migration and exchange of geomaterials. The molecular sieves of microchannels of a few natural minerals have the property of purifying molecular gas pollution. And the ionic sieves of ultramicrochannels of most natural minerals can purify ionic water contaminates.

Study on Decoloration of Acidic Scarlet GR by Pyrolusite Oxidation under an Acid Condition

Decoloration of acidic scarlet GR by pyrolusite is studied in this paper. The effects of pH in solution, dosage and granularity of pyrolusite, reaction temperature, and vibration speed on decoloration efficiency are discussed. According to experiment results, the decoloration efficiency may exceed 95% for 40 mg/L GR solution by pyrolusite, pH is most important among all factors which impact the decoloration of acidic scarlet GR. Dosage and granularity of pyrolusite, reaction temperature, and vibration speed have a little benitfit on decoloration. The high decoloration efficiency and low removal efficiency of COD as well as FT-IR spectra of products between pyrolusite and acidic scarlet GR indicate that acidic scarlet GR undergoes the redox reaction on the interface of mineral and its chromophore is oxidated and decolored, but it is not removed thoroughly by oxidation.