Stabilization and solidification of tailings from a traditional gold mine using portland cement

Abstract

The traditional gold mining in Kulon Progo district, Special Region of Yogyakarta Province produced tailings containing mercury (Hg) from the gold amalgamation process. Mercury accumulated in tailings has 164.19 mg/kg-383.21 mg/kg in total concentration. Stabilization/solidification (S/S) is one of the remediation technologies to reduce waste pollution. Portland cement is one of the additive materials in S/S that effective encapsulates heavy metal waste. The aim of this research is to know the optimum composition of tailings mixture with Portland cement in S/S process. This research used variation of tailings composition. Variation of Portland cement composition with tailing are 100:0, 90:10, 80:20, 70:30, 60:40, 50:50, 40:60, 30:70, 20:80 and 10:90. The result of this study found that the optimum composition of Portland cement: tailings was 10:90, with compression test of 257 ton/m2 and TCLP test was 0.0069 mg/L. The compression test results were in accordance to US EPA Standard quality of 35 ton/m2. TCLP test results meet the standard of Indonesian Government Regulation No. 101 Year 2014 of 0.05 mg/L.