Contaminant Transport of Sugarcane Effluent Through Porous Soil Medium : Interaction Study Between Sugarcane Effluent, Soil and Groundwater

The present study mainly deals with the analysis of various physico-chemical characteristics of effluent from sugarcane industry, groundwater in and around sugarcane industry, soil due to effluent of sugarcane industry. Further, it deals with effect of multiple contaminant migration on adsorption and diffusion processes on soil medium, comparison of sorption coefficients by batch and column adsorption studies on virgin soil, and comparison of results between experimental studies and model analyses related to adsorption removal by a virgin soil. The results indicated that the effluent quality was not conforming to BIS irrigation water quality standard, the groundwater from open and bore wells were not satisfying BIS drinking water quality standards and the soil was found to be slightly alkaline in nature. Further, from batch adsorption study, the Freundlich isotherm was found to fit better than Langmuir isotherm and from batch and column adsorption studies, modified Freundlich isotherm was found to reproduce the field conditions better, and from the regression analysis, the model results fitted well with that of the experimental results for all cations and anions.