ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: The Slovak Republic is a country with long mining traditions. Nowadays in Slovakia exist a few localities with prevailing acid mine drainage generation conditions (either in the form of direct outflow from mine or leachate from tailing ponds). High concentrations of heavy metals, sulphates and low pH are limiting for many various treatment technologies in these acidic waters. The paper deals with methods to remove sulphate from water by precipitation and bio-chemical technology with the aid sulphate reducing bacteria. Acid mine drainage, from the flooded Pech shaft (Smolník), contained a sulphate concentration of about 3200 mg.L−1. Part of the sulphate was removed by precipitation. Sulphate reducing bacteria was used for the residual 1200 mg.L−1 of sulphate. After applying sulphate reducing bacteria the concentration of sulphates in solution was decreased by 30%.
