| One of the most pressing concerns that is developing in the 21 st century is the lack of water needed not only to sustain life, but also to support a burgeoning population. Many cities and municipalities that once thought water was an unlimited resource are now having to implement conservation, and, in some cases, water rationing measures. This growing need is compounded by the fact that in many places water resources have become too contaminated for use.; It has been shown in many studies that clay minerals are capable of sorbing both hydrophobic and hydrophilic chemicals from contaminated media. A main impediment to large scale remediation of contaminated water is the ability of clay minerals to swell when hydrated. This has limited these materials to mainly batch reactors and limited their full potential as a remedial technology. Drawing on previous work, also developed in our laboratory, we have demonstrated that clay-minerals can be physically adhered to a solid support such as sand to produce a porous sorbent with high capacity and affinity for contaminants.; The focus of this research is to demonstrate the effectiveness of solid phase sorbents in remediating water contaminated with lead and creosote waste. Composites prepared with sodium montmorillonite are demonstrated in the laboratory to have a high capacity for removing lead while composites prepared with a cetyl pyridinium exchanged, low pH montmorillonite are effective at sorbing creosote waste. Field studies at a former wood preserving waste site were used to test the efficacy of the organoclay sorbents. In addition, adult Hydra attenuata were used as a bioassay model to confirm detoxification of the contaminated water.; The findings of this work demonstrate the capability to construct multifunctional, solid phase, sorbent columns capable of removing large quantities of diverse pollutants from contaminated water. These treatment columns maintain the flow-through characteristics of a porous sorbent while retaining the capacity and affinity for pollutants characteristic of clay minerals. Future studies will focus on refining and more fully characterizing this sorbent with the ultimate goal of implementing this technology on a large scale at Superfund sites. |
