Yellowstar Bentonite has three ranges of prepared bentonite suitable for adsorption. Adsorption is an important treatment of the following:

• Polluted water (including Acid Mine Drainage)
• Pollution leachates
• Hydrocarbon (including oil and petroleum) spills on solid working and operating surfaces (including cement floors, driveways)

Bentonite works well because of its crystal structure. It has a layered structure and has a high cation exchange capacity. It is the chemical properties as well as the physical properties that make bentonite excellent for adsorption. The low cost of bentonite treatments makes it one of the common first-line defenses in pollution treatment.

In field trials Yellowstar Bentonite has been used to accelerate the adsorption of a wide range of heavy metals. The field of heavy metals is shown below.

Hydrocarbon spills

The easiest way to apply Yellowstar Bentonite is to spread directly  over an oil spill where it is on a solid surface. After a few hours or days this can be scooped up and containerized. The alternative here is to apply the bentonite in porous ‘sausage bags’ or square hessian bags. After a few hours or days these can be replaced with new bags and the contaminated bags disposed.

Polluted Water

One of the biggest global problems that abandoned mines, mines in care & maintenance face is that certain minerals (sulphide minerals), in contact with water, react and yield to acid mine drainage.

The common lackluster treatment method is to dose with large amounts of lime. The effect is to raise the pH, closer to neutral (pH7). However the effect does not last long and within a few short days the treated water becomes acidic again. This feature is well known and described widely. The reason is regeneration of acid because the manganese is not removed. Limestone is not able to get the pH to the 9-10pH range to remove the manganese, but using bentonite solves this problem permanently.