Abstract
A large amount of abandoned antimony tailing slag piled up in the open air has been released and migrated to the surrounding environment under the weathering and leaching effects, causing heavy metal pollution. The evaluation of heavy metal contamination of antimony tailings slag is essential. In this study, the indices Igeo, Cf, and Er were used to evaluate the risk of heavy metal contamination of slag from an open antimony mine tailings pile in southwest China. These indices were weighted to produce a composite evaluation reflecting the level of risk of heavy metal contamination as:PERs(Sb)>PERs(As)>PERs(Zn)=PERs(Cd)>PERs(Ni)>PERs(Pb)>PERs(Cr)>PERs(Cu). To verify the accuracy of the comprehensive evaluation results, an experimental study was carried out on slag samples using static leaching experiments. The results indicate that the exact amount of release is related to its release mechanism and that it was found to be more accurate for the combined evaluation of Sb, Zn, and Ni. Additionally, water samples were evaluated using principal component analysis to refine the comprehensive evaluation. Ni and Zn contamination was also found to be of concern. Furthermore, this study highlights an optimization methodology for heavy metal pollution risk evaluation.