International Journal of Environmental Science and Development

Abstract—Hexavalent chromium is one of the highly toxic heavy metals which could lead to severe health issues when it is discharged into aquifers as industrial wastewater. In the current study nFe⁰/Cu was successfully employed in PRB technology for Cr(VI) removal from groundwater. Batch and column experiments confirmed the high reactive performance of nFe⁰/Cu towards Cr(VI) removal by around 85% removal efficiency. The main pathways for Cr-species removal by nFe⁰/Cu were determined as the reduction of Cr(VI) to Cr(III) by both nFe0 and Cu0 and the precipitation/co-precipitation of Cr(III) with the released iron oxides on the nFe0/Cu surface. The developed 3D-surface response optimization model confirmed the reciprocal relation between the residence time, barrier thickness and hydraulic conductivity. The interaction and sensitivity analysis between the model’s parameters were significantly crucial for defining the optimal design conditions of the nFe⁰/Cu-PRB. Generally, the current study could represent a great contribution in scaling-up the PRB technology towards the real field applications.

Index Terms—Bimetallic nanoscale zero valent iron (nFe⁰/Cu), hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)), optimization, permeable reactive barrier (PRB).

The authors are with the Department of Earth System Science and Technology, Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Engineering Sciences (IGSES), Kyushu University, Kasuga-city, Kasug-Koen (6-1), Fukuoka, 816-8050, Japan (e-mail: ibrahim-maamoun@kyudai.jp, omarail92@hotmail.com, ramadaneljamal54@gmail.com, khaoulabensaide@gmail.com, osama-eljamal@kyudai.jp).

[PDF]

Cite: I. Maamoun, O. Falyouna, R. Eljamal, K. Bensaida, and O. Eljamal, "Optimization Modeling of nFe⁰/Cu-PRB Design for Cr(VI) Removal from Groundwater," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 12, no. 5, pp. 131-138, 2021.

Copyright © 2021 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).