Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Ghosh, Rajat S.
• Dzombak, David A.
• Luthy, Richard G.
• Nakles, David V.

Titel

Subsurface Fate and Transport of Cyanide Species at a Manufactured-Gas Plant Site

Ist Teil von

• Water environment research, 1999-09, Vol.71 (6), p.1205-1216

Ort / Verlag

Alexandria, VA: Water Environment Federation

Erscheinungsjahr

1999

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Wiley(RISS)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Cyanide is present at manufactured-gas plant (MGP) sites in oxide-box residuals, which were often managed on-site as fill during active operations. Cyanide can leach from these materials, causing groundwater contamination. Speciation, fate, and transport of cyanide in a sand-gravel aquifer underlying an MGP site in the upper Midwest region of the United States were studied through characterization, monitoring, and modeling of a plume of cyanide-contaminated groundwater emanating from the site. Results indicate that cyanide in the groundwater is primarily in the form of iron-cyanide complexes (>98%), that these complexes are stable under the conditions of the aquifer, and that they are transported as nonreactive solutes in the sand-gravel aquifer material. Weak-acid-dissociable cyanide, which represents a minute fraction of total cyanide in the site groundwater, may undergo chemical-biological degradation in the sand-gravel aquifer. It seems that dilution may be the only natural attenuation mechanism for iron-cyanide complexes in sand-gravel aquifers at MGP sites.