Agricultural Engineering

Assessment of Sepiolite Ability to Reduce Pb and Zn Leaching from Soil Columns

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Saeid Hojati 1
Ahmad Landi 2
Heyam Alekasiri 3

1 Assistant Professor of Soil Science, College of Agriculture, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Khuzestan, Iran

2 Associate Professor of Soil Science, College of Agriculture, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Khuzestan, Iran

3 Master of Environmental Sciences, Ahvaz 61349-46655, Khuzestan, Iran

Abstract
Wastewaters from different industries contain great amounts of heavy metals which can contaminate the ground water after entering the soil. Few studies have been conducted on the application of clay minerals such as sepiolite in preventing the leaching of these elements. This study was conducted to evaluate sepiolite as a strong and inexpensive adsorbent in preventing the leaching of lead and zinc from sandy soil columns under laboratory conditions. Therefore, 400 ml of solutions containing lead and zinc with a concentration of 75 mg/l, were passed through pre-saturated soil columns with different amounts of sepiolite (2, 4, 6 and 8 weight percent) in two sizes, < 2 and 20- 50 microns, under a flow rate of 1.2 liter h-1. The concentration of lead and zinc in the successive 20 ml leachate was then measured using atomic absorption spectrophotometer. Results showed that application of sepiolite in soil columns decreased leached amount of Pb and Zn as compared to control treatments. Also, with increasing sepiolite application rate, and decreasing its particle size, leaching of zinc and lead from the soils was reduced. However, the amount of lead leached was less than that of zinc. It seems that sepiolite mineral could be utilized as suitable materials to reduce the leaching of lead and zinc from soil to ground waters.

Keywords

Sepiolite
Pollution
Wastewater
Leaching

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