Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

REDUCTIVE DEHALOGENATION OF ALDRIN BY CAST IRON

Yangdup Lama, Alok Sinhab and Gurdeep Singh

Abstract

Organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) pose serious threat to the environment and can contaminate soil, groundwater and poses a serious health hazards to the end users. Groundwater contaminted with such pesticide are difficult to treat and require huge investment for remediation. Nowadays, Zero Valent Iron (ZVI) is being used as a reactive material in Permeable Reactive Barriers (PRBs) for in-situ remeditaion of groundwater. This paper reveals the interaction of OCP Aldrin with cast iron filings. Decline of total concentration of aldrin (CT) can be expressed in terms of aqueous concentration (Ca) and can be described by equation dCT ------------- = - K1.M.(Ca)n dC where the values of reaction rate (k1) and reaction order (n) were found to be 3.40 x 10-3 hr-1 g-1 iron L and 3.115 respectively. The interaction of Aldrin with cast iron filings showed simultaneous reduction and adsorption reactions. The adsorption of Aldrin to the graphite inclusions prersent on cast iron can be described by Freundlich isotherm.