Column experiments with heap material of Kupferschiefer mining and thermodynamic interpretation

Material of a mine waste dump of Kupferschiefer mining was investigated in column and equilibrium experiments in closed vessels over 64 days and 90 days, respectively. The de-ployed solids are composed of silicate phases, calcite, dolomite, gypsum, and a few percent of residual sulfides, already indicating a depletion of the karstifyable material and in particular a dedolomitization. The development of the solution composition at the columns outflow is characterized by a steady increase of alkalinity with a striking transient maximum, succeed-ing draw back and equilibration. In connection with an increasing mole fraction of magnesium in solution this phenomenon is interpreted as consequence of dedolomitization and depicted in abinary solubility diagram according to Lippmann (1980). In calcium rich pore waters (due to gypsum dissolution) dolomite dissolves incongruently precipitating calcite. Such compli-cated reaction paths are usually not identified by "crude" batch experiments. Moreover it could be shown that the formation of preferred flow paths may even affect the solution com-position in particular cases. In these experiments an estimation of transport parameters was not yet carried out, but is planned for the future to apply reactive transport codes for model-ing these processes.