Analysis of Aluminum, Manganese, and Iron Adsorption for the Design of a Liner for Retention of the Acid Mining Drainage Miriam Gonçalves Miguel & Rodrigo Paiva Barreto & Sueli Yoshinaga Pereira Received: 2 August 2014 /Accepted: 12 January 2015 /Published online: 25 February 2015 # Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 Abstract The first uranium extraction mine of Brazil, nowadays found in decommissioning phase, has caused several negative environmental impacts in its area, as a result of mining, treatment, and beneficiation processes. The generation of acid mine drainage in waste rock pile 4 (WR-4) is one of the negative impacts with the most critical situation. The acidic water, product of this drain- age, presents heavy metals and radioactive elements and it may be infiltrated by the basis of the impoundment basin, where this water is collected for treatment. The objective of this study was to investigate a typical trop- ical soil, located in the area of Ores Treatment Unit of Caldas in the southwestern state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, in order to use it as a mineral liner for a retention basin to minimize leakage of acidic water through the foundation of a containment dam. In this way, geotechnical, chem- ical, and mineralogical tests were performed in order to characterize a soil sample collected in the area. In addi- tion, adsorption tests were conducted with solutions of aluminum (Al), manganese (Mn), and iron (Fe), and with and without adjustment of the initial pH (pH to ) of the solutions. The results indicated a well-weathered soil composed of kaolinite, gibbsite, and iron oxides. The adsorption tests showed different behaviors for Al, Mn, and Fe considering or not the adjustment of the pH to . Aluminum showed low adsorption by soil; because of this, only the adsorption isotherms of Mn and Fe for test with adjustment of the pH t0 were determinate. The coefficient of distribution ( K D ) of Mn was 0.0364 L g -1 and Fe 0.0281 L g -1 . As for the retardation factor (R d ), its values ranged from 81 to 91 for Mn and from 61 to 79 for Fe, considering different behaviors of the adsorption isotherm models. Keywords Lateritic soils . Liners . Waste rock piles . Batch test . Contaminanttransport . Acid mining drainage 1 Introduction Acid mine drainage (AMD) has been a great pollution problem in Brazil and around the world, being an envi- ronmental problem studied by several researchers (Singh and Rawat 1985; Fernandes et al. 1998; Diz et al. 1999; Ladeira and Gonçalves 2007; Motsi et al. 2009; Vazquez et al. 2010; Campos et al. 2011). Typically, ADM is high in iron (Fe), aluminum (Al), manganese (Mn), and sul- fate, and its pH is often less than 3 (Diz et al. 1999). According to Sposito (2008), aluminum, iron, manga- nese, and titanium form the important oxide, oxyhydroxide, and hydroxide minerals in soils, and they are characterized by small particle size and low solubility in the normal range of soil pH values. Low soil pH is accompanied by proton attack on Al-bearing minerals leading to the production of soluble Al +3 in the soil Water Air Soil Pollut (2015) 226: 67 DOI 10.1007/s11270-015-2297-6 M. G. Miguel (*) : R. P. Barreto Faculty of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Urbanism, State University of Campinas (Unicamp), Campinas, Brazil e-mail: miriammiguel@uol.com.br S. Y. Pereira Geoscience Institute, State University of Campinas (Unicamp), Campinas, Brazil