• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.151-160
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• 2013

A column experiment was carried out to study the reaction of Cr(VI) with organic carbon. Chemical analysis for the effluent collected at different times after the reaction of Cr(VI) with organic carbon in compost and SEM observation for the solid samples remaining after the reaction were conducted. Cr(VI) supplied to the column was not detected in the effluent from column at initial stage, but the concentration of Cr(VI) increased abruptly and maintained the initial supplied concentration (20 mg/kg), indicating that Cr(VI) was effectively removed from the solution at the first state. In general, the concentrations of cations and anions with the exception of $PO_4$ increased and decreased again. Considering that most of these ions were not detected or showed very low concentration, these ions are considered to originate from the organic carbon in the column. SEM observation showed that Cr was coprecipitated with Fe on the surface of organic carbon with small amount of other metals such as Mn, No, and Co. This indicated that on the reduction condition on the organic carbon, Cr(VI) was reduced to $Cr(OH)_3$ and coprecipitated with $Fe(OH)_3$, and that Fe is very important in the precipitation of Cr. After the soluble Fe and Mn are not dissolved any more, $Cr(OH)_3$ is not precipitated. Different from other ions, the concentrations of $PO_4$ decreased and increased, which was thought to be the result of the release of $PO_4$ from organic carbon and sorption on the precipitates. After the maximum sorption on the precipitates and no further release of Fe, the concentration of $PO_4$ returns to its original value measured for the ones released from the organic carbon.