Original Articles
B. Sathyanarayana, K. Seshaiah
Abstract
A laboratory soil column experiments were conducted to determine the extent of Cr leaching from soil percolated with influent that contained the surfactant alkylbenzenesulphonate. The results of Cr breakthrough curves (BTCs) showed that less pore volumes of influents were required to reach the relative concentration ratio of 1 (C/C0=1) for the two soils namely sandy loam soil and clay loam soil treated with the influent alkylbenzenesulphonate. The concentration of Cr in the column effluents of soils percolated with 0.01M KCl in 0.05% alkylbenzenesulphonate and with 0.01M KCl in 0.01% alkylbenzenesulphonate were significantly higher than those percolated with 0.01M KCl with the same volumes of effluents collected. This clearly indicates that the anionic surfactant alkylbenzenesulphonate which are negatively charged have higher potential for competing the adsorption sites with Cr on soils, leading to increasing mobility of Cr which also exists as anion ( 2 2 7 Cr O - ) in soil. Further it is observed that the characteristics of soil components related to Cr adsorption affected the adsorption as well as desorption process and subsequent mobility of Cr in soil environment.