International Journal of Environmental Science and Development

Abstract—The remediation of fine grained soils contaminated with heavy metal is a costly and time consuming process. This is Due to high and strong sorption of heavy metals by fine grained soils, low hydraulic conductivity of fine grained soils and non degradable nature of heavy metals. Numerous researchers have demonstrated that the application of acoustic waves can increase transport of contaminants through the coarse grained soils. However the effectiveness of acoustics for removal of heavy metals from fine grained soils like clay, considering in-situ conditions, is until need to be evaluated. This research is thus aimed to determine the effects of acoustics on desorption of zinc from illite and silica mixture considering in-situ stress conditions. A series of column test was carried out with and without acoustic excitation. The acoustics was applied with different frequencies, acoustic powers and excitation times. It is seen that the application of acoustics can augment the removal of contaminant from porous media. The removal of contaminant can be enhanced with increase in the power level and excitation time.

Index Terms—acoustics, illite, silica, zinc, column test.

¹ Department of Civil Engineering, Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro, Pakistan
² Department of Civil Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan.
⁺ Corresponding author. Tel.: + 92-333-2777945(e-mail address:aneel4u@hotmail.com).

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Cite: Aneel Kumar and Jiro Takemura, "Effects of Acoustics on Desorption of Zinc from Illite and Silica," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 260-263, 2010.