Toxicity estimate of heavy metals, metalloids and nonmetals contained in mineral mining waste

Mining activities lead to severe pollution of the environment with metals, metalloids and nonmetals. In the Caucasus, the largest induced pollution results from performance of Urup and Tyrnyauz mining and processing integrated works, Mizur concentration factory, as well as Electrozinc and Pobedit plants. Pollutants from these sources mostly accumulate in soil. The most wide-spread soil in the influence zone of the listed pollution sources is the brown forest earth. The article offers a comparative estimation of pollution hazard for 28 heavy metals, metalloids and nonmetals contained in mineral mining and processing waste by the rate of total depopulation of bacteria in the weakly unsaturated brown forest earth. Pollution was modeled on a laboratory scale. The cryptotoxic elements were entered as oxides at concentrations of 10 and 100 mg of an element per 1 kg of soil. The total number of bacteria was determined using direct luminescence microscopy. The cryptotoxic elements were ranked by their hazard for bacteria in the weakly unsaturated brown forest earth at the concentration of 10 mg/kg: Se > Te. The most hazardous pollutants for the earth bacteria appeared to be chromium, selenium, tellurium and silver.

Evstegneeva N. A., Kolesnikov S. I., Minnikova T. V., Timoshenko A. N. Toxicity estimate of heavy metals, metalloids and nonmetals contained in mineral mining waste. MIAB. Mining Inf. Anal. Bull. 2023;(5-1):73-85. [In Russ]. DOI: 10.25018/0236_1493_2023_51_0_73.

The study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (Grant No. 22-24-01041) in Southern Federal University.

N.A. Evstegneeva¹, Graduate Student, e-mail: evstegneeva@sfedu.ru, ORCID ID: 0000-0003-3133-7629,
S.I. Kolesnikov¹, Dr. Sci. (Agric.), Professor, Head of Chair, e-mail: kolesnikov@sfedu.ru, ORCID ID: 0000-0001-5860-8420,
T.V. Minnikova¹, Cand. Sci. (Biol.), Leading Researcher, e-mail: loko261008@yandex.ru, ORCID ID: 0000-0002-9453-7137,
A.N. Timoshenko¹, Cand. Sci. (Biol.), Leading Researcher, e-mail: aly9215@mail.ru, ORCID ID: 0000-0001-5589-2171,
¹ D.I. Ivanovsky Academy of Biology and Biotechnology, Southern Federal University, 344090, Rostov-on-Don, Russia.

N.A. Evstegneeva, e-mail: evstegneeva@sfedu.ru.

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