INFLUENCE OF HEXAVALENT CHROMIUM INITIAL CONCENTRATION ON RETARDATION FACTOR AND CONTAMINANT VELOCITY IN A SOIL MEDIA

Abstract

Sources of soil and ground water contamination are many and include many folds of accidental spills and leaks of toxic and hazardous chemicals. Preparation of ground water contamination model needs good understanding of the behavior of contaminant transport through soil media for predicting the level of contamination of ground water in the near future at the intended site conditions. Sorption is a natural process; due to its presence, the contaminant can move slowly as compared to the ground water and hence the effects of sorption must be taken into consideration while predicting the travel time of the contaminant to reach the ground water sources. This paper discusses the results of column test studies carried out in the laboratory under controlled conditions about the spreading of contaminant (Hexavalent chromium, Cr (VI)) through the clay mixed red soil at two different initial concentrations (800 mg/L and 4200 mg/L). The variations of the contaminant flow velocity and retardation factor for two different initial concentrations of contaminant were brought out and discussed. The contaminant flow velocity drastically coming down for a relative concentration of 0 to 0.2 and beyond this range, the contaminant flow velocity value is decreasing in a slow rate for both the lower and higher initial contaminant concentrations tested. At the lower relative concentration, the higher retardation factor was observed and it may be due to slowly filling the available sorption sites in the soil column.

Keywords

• Contaminant transport
• Sorption
• Column test
• Retardation factor
• Contaminant flow velocity