Mobility of heavy metals associated with the natural weathering of coal mine spoils.

Knowledge of chemical mobility of heavy metals is fundamental to understanding their toxicity, bioavailability, and geochemical behavior. In this paper, two different methods, i.e. mineralogical means and sequential extractions, were employed to analyze the total contents, existing states, and chemical forms of heavy metals in coal mine spoils. The results demonstrate that the mobility of heavy metals in coal mine spoils depends not only on their existing states and the stability of their host minerals but also on the properties of the coal mine spoils. In the process of coal mine spoils-water interaction, sulfides that contain heavy metals first break down and release metals, which are then adsorbed and complexed by the iron oxyhydroxide colloid resulting from pyrite oxidization and organic matter. During the natural weathering of coal mine spoils, only a small fraction of these metals are released to the environment, and most of them still remains in the residual material.