Abstract:
The objectives of this study were to study the hexavalent chromium transport and the application of computer software for predicting the transport of hexavalent choromium in subsurface by soil samples in batch and column experiments. Aims of batch experiments were to study efficiencies and hexavalent chromium adsorption capacities of soil samples in the Maptaphut industrial eatate zone, Rayong which were used as surrogate soil and to study effect of pH on hexavalent chromium range of 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. Column experiments aimed to calculate dispersion coefficient by the tracer test and to compare the results of the column experiments to that of the HYDRUS2D computer software. Batch experiments showed that hexavalent chromium adsorption capacities increased with decreasing solution pH in the range of the study. hexavalent chromium batch experiments also revealed that an increase in the amount of soil samples increased the total amount of hexavalent chromium adsorption but decreased the capacities of chromium adsorption per gram of soil samples. The adsorption isotherm for chromium adsorption was agreeable with the Langmuir isotherm. Column experiment results showed that the value of dispersion coefficient was 10.26 x 10-3 cm2 /s. After comparing the results of the HYDRUS2D to that of the column experiments, it was found that the HYDRUS2D was able to predict most precisely at pH 6 and less precisely at pH 8. However, HYDRUS2D failed significantly to describe the behavior of hexavalent chromium transport at pH 4 as seen clearly from the difference between the results of the HYDRUS2D and that of the column experiments. That was, modeling the transport of metals using the local equilibrium assumption using non equilibrium sorption parameters failed significantly to describe the behavior of hexavalent chromium transport. Prediction by HYDRUS2D was still unvalid for the application in real situation since the value resulted from the prediction was less than that from experiments. Using the results from the HYDRUS2D without checkup might not be appropriate.