Environmental Mineralogy And Geochemistry Unit

Infrastructures

Laboratory Menu

The Research Group has three research laboratories in the Faculty of Experimental Sciences and two in the CIDERTA Building. The laboratories are fully-equipped for the basic characterization and treatment of solid (rocks, soils, sediments) and liquid samples, as well as for the determination of basic physical-chemical parameters and small-scale tests (batch tests, sequential extractions, kinetic tests, column treatment test, controlled pressure and temperature tests, etc.). This equipment includes, among others, a Parr reactor model 4524 with 4848 controller, pXRF Niton ™ XL3t GOLDD +, Telstar LyoQuest Plus freeze-dryer, several multimeters (pH, CE, Ox, TDS, etc.) and other small laboratory equipment.

For field work, numerous equipment is available for sampling solid and liquid matrix, as well as for continuous on-site monitoring, such as: portable multimeters (Hydrolab HL4, WTW MultiLine Multi 3630 IDS, etc.), continuous on-site meters (Eijkelkamp CTD-Diver, Schlumberger Cera-Diver, LTC Levelogger Edge), MF Pro magnetic-inductive flowmeter, Niskin-type water sampler, Teledyne ISCO autosamplers, and sediment and core samplers ( Eijkelkamp type Beeker, Uwitec sediment corer, Van Veen grab sampler, etc.).

The Group is also operating a pilot-scale plant in the CIDERTA building for the active treatment of industrial and mining leachates and the recovery of Critical Raw Materials (REE, Y, Sc), as well as two full-scale plants for the passive treatment of Acid Mine Drainage and the development of new passive treatments using several types of reactive substrates (MgO, BaCO3, etc.). These plants are located in Mina Esperanza (upper part of the Odiel river basin) and Mina Concepción, both in the province of Huelva, and have been built with competitive research projects of the Group (TAAM and LIFE-ETAD).

Mina Esperanza full-scale passive treatment plant in the upper part of the Odiel river basin

In addition, the Group has privileged access and is a regular user of the research infrastructure available in the Central Research Services of the Marie Curie building and in the CIDERTA building.

The Group is a regular user of the following equipment available at SCI-Marie Curie (see a complete list of equipment here):

  • ICP-OES Horiba Jovin Yvon Ultima 2
  • XRD Bruker D8 Advance
  • XRF Bruker S4 PIONNER
  • Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM) JEOL IT-300HR-LV
  • Electron Microprobe (EPMA) JEOL JXA-8200

And also of the following equipment available at CIDERTA (see a complete list here):

  • Scanning Electron Microscope FEI ESEM QUANTA 200
  • Ion Chromatograph METROHM AG 883 Basic IC plus
  • ICP-OES Agilent 5110
  • ICP-MS Agilent Serie 7700
  • ICP-QQQ-MS Agilent Serie 8900

Some of this equipment has been acquired by the Research Group through competitive calls, including a FESEM (project UNHU15-CE-2966), an ICP-OES (project UNHU15-CE-3027) and an ICP-QQQ-MS (project EQC2019 -005652-P).

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