The leaching of antimony and arsenic by simulated acid rain in three soil types from the world’s largest antimony mine area

A simulated acid rain (SAR) experiment on leaching of antimony (Sb) and arsenic (As) in three soil types including paddy soils (PS), vegetable soils (VS) and slag based soils (SS) from Xikuangshan (XKS) Sb mine area was conducted. The SAR at pH 2.5, 3.5, 4.5 and 5.6 were sprayed to soil columns with intermittent pattern in a period of 50 days. Through the spraying duration, leaching Sb in PS, VS and SS showed decreasing trends regardless of pH values in SAR and were in the ranges of 0.026–0.064 mg L −1 , 0.19–2.18 mg L −1 and 11.8–32.4 mg L −1 , respectively. By contrast, leaching As in these three soil types continuously increased at the initial five spraying times and then deeply decreased afterward, with ranges being 0–0.007 mg L −1 , 0.001–0.071 mg L −1 and 0.17–1.07 mg L −1 , respectively. The leaching Sb in all the three soil types were extremely higher than the reference value in grade IV (0.01 mg L −1 ) for groundwater quality of China (GB/T 14,848–2017). For leaching As, peck values in VS and all the values in SS were also greater than the corresponding reference value (0.05 mg L −1 ). This indicated that leaching Sb and As could pollute the groundwater in XKS Sb mine area, especially those in slag based soils. The total leaching losses of Sb and As were affected by pH ambiguously, such as SAR at pH 2.5, 5.6 and 2.5 induced the greatest losses of Sb in PS, VS and SS, and pH 3.5, 5.6 and 2.5 resulted in the greatest leaching losses of As in these soils. After SAR treatment, the specific sorbed and Fe/Mn oxide-associated Sb and As significantly decreased. It demonstrated that these two fractions of both Sb and As were involved in leaching losses. The present study also found that the SAR treatment resulted in soil acidification in all the three soil types. In addition, available N, P and K in all the SAR treatments decreased regardless of pH values, except for available N and P in PS.