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Treatment of Nitrate-Containing Soil by Nano-scale Iron Particles and Electrokinetic Remediation

Abstract
A novel process of combining electrokinetic remediation and nano-sized iron wall was used for studying its effectiveness of treating nitrate-containing soil. Nitrates and nitrites are commonly found in surface water and groundwater. These substances, in general, could pose a threat to both organisms in the water bodies and human health. Traditionally, nitrogen oxides in various water bodies are treated by biological denitrification processes. However, it would take a longer time to yield a satisfactory result as compared with physicochemical processes. In recent years, permeable reactive barriers (PRBs) using zero-valent iron have been successfully used for degradation of various compounds including nitrates. Electrokinetic processing (EK) also is considered as an effective in-situ technology for removing both inorganic and organic substances from the treatment zone. In this work, the synthesized nano-scale iron particles were incorporated into a PRB, which was further combined with EK to form a novel process for the degradation of nitrates. Various operating parameters were studied in this work. The nano-sized iron particles were determined to be ranging from 50-80nm in size and having specific surface area of 37.83m2. The isoelctric point of these nanoparticles was found to be at pH 7.3. Experimental results have shown that the best location of the iron wall was 5cm from the anode reservoir. Also, the optimal treatment time would be six days in this study. The treatment efficiency was found to increase with increasing dose of nano-sized iron particles in the PRB. Operating with the polarity reverse would slightly increase the overall treatment efficiency as compared with the case of no polarity reverse (92.38% versus 88.34%). An electric gradient of 1.5V/cm was determined to be the optimal electric field strength in this study. In this work, it was also found that 2.5g nano-scale iron particles outperformed 20g micro-scale iron particles (75-150µm) in terms of nitrate degradation. In a study of using an extended treatment time up to 20 days, the black colored iron wall would fade away becoming a rusty plume toward the cathode as the treatment time elapsed. Furthermore, the Fe2+ concentration was elevated throughout the soil column after the 20-day treatment. Therefore, it is evident that nano-sized iron particles would migrate when they are subjected to EK. Based on the research findings obtained, the novel process employed in this study was found to be an effective one for in-situ treatment of nitrate-containing soil.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0828103-155838
Date28 August 2003
CreatorsLee, Hsiao-Lan
Contributorsnone, none, none, none
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0828103-155838
Rightswithheld, Copyright information available at source archive

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