Study of the Effects of Infiltration of Activated Carbon on Hydrodynamic Properties of a Sandy Porous Media

Application of outflow water from treatment plants for irrigation as a non-usual water resource is being developed due to the lack of usual water resources in Iran. Activated carbon as a conditioner in water treatment procedures causes undesired changes in hydraulic properties of porous media and soil degradation. In this paper, the effects of activated carbon concentration on hydrodynamic properties of a sand soil were studied through a physical modeling activity. Variation of saturated hydraulic conductivity, bulk density and porosity of the sand was measured for two categorical tests. First, for the flowing of fresh water through a soil-carbon mixture with 1 to 7 mass percent and the other for the mixture of water-carbon with 0.5 to 2 mass percent through the sand. The results showed that the saturated hydraulic conductivity of sand decrease 80 percent due to mixture of 7 percent sand-carbon and reduced from 0.06 cm/s to 0.014 cm/s, porosity was reduced from 0.44 to 0.426 and bulk density was increased from 1.5 to 1.507 g/cm3. Also, reduction of 91.5% and 6% for saturated hydraulic conductivity and porosity, respectively and an increase of 0.71% in bulk density were observed due to flowing water-carbon through the sand column with concentration of 2%.