Controls and Rates of Acid Production in Commercial‐Scale Sulfur Blocks
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Acidic drainage (pH 0.4-1.0) from oxidizing elemental sulfur (S(0)) blocks is an environmental concern in regions where S(0) is stockpiled. In this study, the locations, controls, and rates of H(2)SO(4) production in commercial-scale S(0) blocks ( approximately 1-2 x 10(6) m(3)) in northern Alberta, Canada, were estimated. In situ modeling of O(2) concentrations ([O(2)]) suggest that 70 to >97% of the annual H(2)SO(4) production occurs in the upper 1 m of the blocks where temperatures increase to >15 degrees C during the summer. Laboratory experiments show that S(0) oxidation rates are sensitive to temperature (Q(10) = 4.3) and dependent on the activity of autotrophic S(0)-oxidizing microbes. The annual efflux of SO(4) in drainage water from a S(0) block (5.5 x 10(5) kg) was within the estimated range of SO(4) production within the block (2.7 x 10(5) to 1.2 x 10(6) kg), suggesting that H(2)SO(4) production and removal rates were approximately equal during the study period. The low mean relative humidity within the block (68%; SD = 17%; n = 21) was attributed to osmotic suction from elevated H(2)SO(4) concentrations and suggests a mean in situ pH of approximately -2.1. The low pH of drainage waters was attributed to the mixing of fresh infiltrating water and low-pH in situ water. Heat generation during S(0) oxidation was an important factor in maintaining elevated temperatures (mean, 11.1 degrees C) within the block. The implications of this research are relevant globally because construction methods and the physical properties of S(0) blocks are similar worldwide.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".