Abstract

Abstract:Managing the waste material unscientifically is causing a lot of directand indirect environmental problems. Due to increase in the hydro-environmentalpollution on the earth, the reactive- advective -dispersion phenomenon whichdescribes the reactive solute transport in the medium has got significantattention world over. Various analytical and numerical methods are available toanalyze this phenomenon under different initial boundary conditions. Theobjective of this study is to model the contaminant transport of the metal ionsi.e. copper and zinc through the black cotton soil using finite layer andfinite difference methods viz: Backward Time Centered Scheme (BTCS), Upwind andCrank-Nicolson implicit schemes. The column experiments were conducted withconstant and decreasing concentrations from the contaminant sources. Theexperimental results were modeled with the finite layer method using POLLUTEsoftware and the finite difference method with Excel spreadsheet solution. Itwas found that more accurate values of the transport parameters i.e. dispersioncoefficient and the distribution coefficient were obtained with finite layermethod and finite difference method using Crank-Nicolson scheme. A new Excelspreadsheet solution for the reactive-advective- dispersion phenomenon wasdeveloped by incorporating the retardation factor in the non-reactive methodproposed by Karahan in 2006. The dispersion coefficient of copper ions  was observed to be lower than that of  zinc ions while the distribution coefficientof  copper  ions was found to be  higher than thatof zinc ions  and  the metal ion retention sequence was found tobe Cu > Zn in the  black cotton soil.

Keywords – Solute, Black cotton soil, Copper,Zinc, Concentration, PO­­LLUTE software.