Leaching characteristics of vanadium in mine tailings and soils near a vanadium titanomagnetite mining site

Highlights: • Vanadium in the soil and mine tailings has low solubility. • The leachability of vanadium in the mine tailings is lower than in the soil. • Low risk of vanadium migrating from the soil and mine tailings into the surrounding environment. • Drought and rewetting increase vanadium release from the soil and mine tailings. • Soil leaching processes control vanadium transport in soils overlain with mine tailings. -- Abstract: A series of column leaching experiments were performed to understand the leaching behaviour and the potential environmental risk of vanadium in a Panzhihua soil and vanadium titanomagnetite mine tailings. Results from sequential extraction experiments indicated that the mobility of vanadium in both the soil and the mine tailings was low, with <1% of the total vanadium readily mobilised. Column experiments revealed that only <0.1% of vanadium in the soil and mine tailing was leachable. The vanadium concentrations in the soil leachates did not vary considerably, but decreased with the leachate volume in the mine tailing leachates. This suggests that there was a smaller pool of leachable vanadium in the mine tailings compared to that in the soil. Drought and rewetting increased the vanadium concentrations in the soil and mine tailing leachates from 20 μg L−1 to 50–90 μg L−1, indicating the potential for high vanadium release following periods of drought. Experiments with soil columns overlain with 4, 8 and 20% volume mine tailings/volume soil exhibited very similar vanadium leaching behaviour. These results suggest that the transport of vanadium to the subsurface is controlled primarily by the leaching processes occurring in soils