Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Effect of heavy metal and alkali contamination on the swelling properties of kaolinite

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Environmental Geology

Abstract

One of the most important factors that determine engineering properties of soils are the type and the amount of clay present in soil. Kaolinite being a very common and non-swelling clay mineral in soil was chosen as the medium, and significance of the change in swelling property of kaolinite due to contaminant-clay interaction was investigated. The amount of change in swelling percentages of the kaolinite due to contamination with 10,000 ppm solutions of Pb(NO3)2 and Zn(NO3)2 was determined using oedometers. For uncontaminated kaolinite, the amount of swell was determined as 2.2%. For Pb-contaminated and Zn-contaminated kaolinite, these values reached to 5.8 and 5.3%, respectively. Besides heavy metals, kaolinite was also contaminated with 4 N NaOH. The biggest change in the amount of swelling was obtained from NaOH-contaminated kaolinite which is 13.9%. In addition to swelling percentages, swelling pressures were also determined. The swelling pressure of the uncontaminated kaolinite was found as 1.06 N/cm2. For Zn and Pb-contaminated kaolinite, this value reached up to 2.0 and 2.6 N/cm2. The NaOH-contaminated kaolinite has the greatest swelling pressure which was 230 N/cm2.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Alloway BJ (1990) Heavy metals in soils. Blackie and Son Ltd, p 339

  • Gibson MJ, Farmer JG (1984) Chemical partitioning of trace metal contamination in urban street dirt. Sci Total Environ 33:49–57

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gupta SS, Bathattacharyya KG (2006) Adsorption of Ni (II) on clays. J Colloid Interface Sci 295:21–32

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Klein C, Hurlbut Jr CS (1985) Manual of mineralogy (After James D. Dana). Wiley, New York, pp 596

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee CS, Li X, Shi W, Cheung SC, Thornton I (2006) Metal contamination in urban, suburban, and country park soils of Hong Kong: a study based on GIS and multivariate statistics. Sci Total Environ 356(1–3):45–61

    Google Scholar 

  • Miranda-Trevino JC, Coles CA (2003) Kaolinite properties, structure and influence of metal retention on pH. Appl Clay Sci 23:133–139

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell JK (1993) Fundamentals of soil behavior. Wiley, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Möller A, Müller HW, Abdullah A, Abdelgawad G, Utermann J (2005) Urban soil pollution in Damascus, Syria: concentrations and patterns of heavy metals in the soils of the Damascus Ghouta. Geoderma 124(1–2):63–71

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rao SM, Rao KSS (1994) Ground heave from caustic soda solution spillage—a case study. Soils Found 34(2):13–18

    Google Scholar 

  • Rao SM, Sridharan A (1985) Mechanism controlling the volume change behaviour of kaolinite. Clays Clay Miner 33(4):33–328

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reddi LN, Inyang HI (2000) Geoenvironmental engineering: principles and applications Marcel Dekker Inc., pp 494

  • Sivapullaiah PV, Manju (2005) Kaolinite–Alkali interaction and effects on basic properties. Geotech Geol Eng 23:601–614

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sridharan A, Rao GV (1973) Mechanisms controlling volume change of saturated clays and the role of effective stress concept. Geotechnique 23:359–382

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Srivastava P, Singh B, Angove M (2005) Competitive adsorption behavior of heavy metals on kaolinite. J Colloid Interface Sci 290:28–38

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Turer D (2005) Effect of non-vehicular sources on heavy metal concentrations of roadside soils. Water, Air Soil Contam 166:251–265

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Turer D, Maynard JB (2003) Heavy metal contamination in highway soils. Comparison of Corpus Christi, Texas and Cincinnati, Ohio shows organic matter is key to mobility. Clean Tech Environ Policy 4:235–245

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • White GN, Dixon JB (2000) Soil mineralogy with environmental applications. In: Dixon JB, Schulze DG (eds) Soil Science Society of America, Madison

    Google Scholar 

  • Yavuz O, Altunkaynak Y, Guzel F (2003) Removal of copper, cobalt and manganese from aqueous solution by kaolinite. Water Res 37:948–952

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geological Engineering, Hacettepe University, Beytepe Campus, Ankara, 06532, Turkey

    Dilek Turer

Authors
  1. Dilek Turer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dilek Turer.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Turer, D. Effect of heavy metal and alkali contamination on the swelling properties of kaolinite. Environ Geol 52, 421–425 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00254-006-0557-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00254-006-0557-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation