Potential of Alkaline Gold Mine Tailings to Treat and Prevent AMD Formation: A Case of an Acidic Gold Mine of Sabie-Pilgrim’s Rest Goldfields in South Africa

 Abstract — Acid mine drainage (AMD) pollutes vast quantities of surface water and underground water supplies. AMD is considered to be the second-largest threat to sustainable life after global warming. South Africa is a water-scarce country in a water-scarce continent (Africa). It is of the utmost importance to prevent and treat AMD to preserve water resources and protect all forms of life, primarily aquatic life. The South African government has recently postponed its R10 billion long-term AMD treatment plan, which involves treating AMD polluted water in order to produce potable water or industrial water using desalination. There is a need to develop environmentally sustainable AMD prevention and treatment techniques. The use of by-products or waste from industries as a remediation technique for AMD has received much attention in the last few years, particularly from wastes produced by steel and paper mills. In this study, the acid-generating capabilities of alkaline gold mine tailings, acidic gold mine tailings and a mixture of 3:1 and 1:1 (acidic gold mine tails to alkaline gold mine tailings) were evaluated using static tests, which includes Acid-Base Accounting (ABA) and Net Acid Generation (NAG) tests. The results show that using alkaline gold mine tailings as a pH neutralising cover material to mitigate AMD formation generated by the acidic gold mine tailings located in Sabie-Pilgrim’s rest Goldfields, South Africa seems to be an environmentally sustainable option that can be further