Fine suspended solids from mine drainage draw attentions due to their potential adverse influences on the water quality, such as increasing turbidity and degrading aesthetic landscape. Currently, sand filter beds are adapted in some mine drainage treating systems. However, more efficient system is in demand, as the existing sand beds reveal some problems, such as frequent maintenance intervals. Various filtering mediums including fly ash, mine tailing aggregates and the sand were tested for improving the current system, using column experimental set-up. Mine drainage samples were collected from the current treating systems in the abandoned H coal mine. The experiment was run for 7 days. Suspended solids recorded as 100.9 mg/L and the value exceeds the current standard, 30 mg/L. Sand was proved to still be the optimum medium for the fine suspended solids, compared to fly ash and fly ash + sand. Mine tailing aggregates were placed at the exit of the columns, substituting gravels. The tailing aggregates is made by mine tailings and clay. Sand bed filters can also be improved by mixing granular activated carbon, which was found to be economical and efficient in the batch experiment, conducted at the same time.

Keywords: Mine drainage;Suspended solids;Sand bed;Filtration;