Red mud evaluation for use in permeable reactive barriers in leaks treatment

Abstract

Hydrocarbons found in gasoline (Benzene, Toluene, Ethilbenzene and Xylene - BTEX) are increasingly pollutant of groundwater, which has been generating serious environmental problems to living beings, especially to men, because of its toxicity. The need to reach values compatible with the standard, many treatments have been used, like the in situ contaminants treatment, wich use permeable reactive barrier (PRB) in the path of contamination plume, and one of its most used processes is the adsorption. The aim of this project is evaluation of red mud, process of aluminium fabrication residue, as alternative adsorbent material on the BTEX removal. The development of this research will be the adsorbent characterization, after and before the adsorption. The adsorbent in raw state will be characterized by XRF, XRD, TG/SDC, picnometry, porosimetry, BET, and SEM. The material will be termically and chemically modified. Study of the groups surface in the red mud will made by techniques FTIR and pHpzc. The adsorption study development will be executed by kinects and equilibrium process, followed by a experimental factorial design (23). With the experimental data will be obtained the adsorption isotherms according to models proposed in the literature, assessing the influence of operate parameters. In addition, will be made adjustments of mathematical models that simulate the reaction mechanism and dynamics in real PRB systems. With the results will intend to evaluate the potential of the mud as an alternate adsorbent in PRB for removal of BTEX (AU)