A systematic mapping study on the development of permeable reactive barrier for acid mine drainage treatment

Acid mine drainage is a result of exposure of sulfide ore and minerals to water and oxygen. This environmental pollutant has been considered the second biggest environmental problem after global warming. On the other hand, permeable reactive barrier is an emerging remediation technology which can be used to treat acid mine drainage. However, the effectiveness of this proposed remediation technology greatly depends on the reactive media. Also, treatment of acid mine drainage using permeable reactive barrier is still in the infancy stage, and long-term performance is still unknown. Hence, this study was conducted to identify what have been studied, addressed and what are currently the biggest challenges and limitations on the use of permeable reactive barrier for acid mine drainage treatment. Through systematic mapping approach, the results have shown that the reactive media used in permeable reactive barrier can be categorized into five namely iron-based, organic-based, inorganic minerals-based, industrial waste-based, and combined media. The data revealed that majority of the papers which is about 40% use combined media as the reactive substrate. The future direction is toward the use of combined media as a reactive material for AMD treatment, for instance, use of geopolymer with mine tailings and silts as reactive media in combination with organic-based media.