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Assessment of the effluent quality from a gold mining industry in Ghana

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Abstract

The physical and chemical qualities of the process effluent and the tailings dam wastewater of AngloGold-Ashanti Limited, a gold mining company in Ghana, were studied from June to September, 2010. The process effluent from the gold extraction plant contains high amounts of suspended solids and is therefore highly turbid. Arsenic, copper and cyanide were identified as the major pollutants in the process effluent with average concentrations of 10.0, 3.1 and 21.6 mg L−1, respectively. Arsenic, copper, iron and free cyanide (CN−) concentrations in the process effluent exceeded the Ghana EPA discharge limits; therefore, it is necessary to treat the process effluent before it can be discharged into the environment. Principal component analysis of the data indicated that the process effluent characteristics were influenced by the gold extraction process as well as the nature of the gold-bearing ore processed. No significant correlation was observed between the wastewater characteristics themselves, except for the dissolved oxygen and the biochemical oxygen demand. The process effluent is fed to the Sansu tailings dam, which removes 99.9 % of the total suspended solids and 99.7 % of the turbidity; but copper, arsenic and cyanide concentrations were still high. The effluent produced can be classified as inorganic with a high load of non-biodegradable compounds. It was noted that, though the Sansu tailings dam stores the polluted effluent from the gold extraction plant, there will still be serious environmental problems in the event of failure of the dam.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge funding from the Dutch Government under The Netherlands Fellowship Programme (NUFFIC award 32022513) and the Staff Development and Postgraduate Scholarship Scheme (Kumasi Polytechnic, Ghana). We are grateful to AngloGold Ashanti (Obuasi mine, Ghana) for providing facilities. We are particularly thankful to the manager of the environmental department, Mr. Owusu Yeboah for his guidance and support during the field studies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pollution Prevention and Resource Recovery Core, Department of Environmental Engineering and Water Technology, UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, Westvest 7, 2611 AX, Delft, The Netherlands

    Mike A. Acheampong, Kannan Paksirajan & Piet N. L. Lens

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering, Kumasi Polytechnic, P.O. Box 854, Kumasi, Ghana

    Mike A. Acheampong

  3. Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, 78109, Assam, India

    Kannan Paksirajan

Authors
  1. Mike A. Acheampong
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  2. Kannan Paksirajan
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  3. Piet N. L. Lens
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Correspondence to Mike A. Acheampong.

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Responsible editor: Stuart Simpson

Electronic supplementary material

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Online Resource 1

Variations in temperature of the process effluent (a) and the wastewater in the Sansu tailings dam (b) measured between June 2010 and September 2010 in the morning (open triangle) and afternoon (open square), with Ghana EPA standard (−) (DOC 63 kb)

Online Resource 2

Variations in pH of the process effluent (a) and the wastewater in the Sansu tailings dam (b) measured between June 2010 and September 2010 in the morning (open triangle) and afternoon (open square), with lower (−) and upper (−−) limit in Ghana EPA Standard (DOC 78 kb)

Online Resource 3

Variations in cyanide concentrations of the process effluent (a) and the wastewater in the Sansu tailings dam (b) measured between June 2010 and September 2010 in the morning (open triangle) and afternoon (open square), with Ghana EPA Standard (−) (DOC 63 kb)

Online Resource 4

Descriptive statistics of the process effluent characteristics for morning and afternoon taken daily for 75 days (DOC 87 kb)

Online Resource 5

Descriptive statistics of the tailings dam wastewater characteristics for morning and afternoon taken daily for 75 days (DOC 87 kb)

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Acheampong, M.A., Paksirajan, K. & Lens, P.N.L. Assessment of the effluent quality from a gold mining industry in Ghana. Environ Sci Pollut Res 20, 3799–3811 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-012-1312-3

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