Abstract—The coal fly ashes contain toxic metals much higher concentrations than soil background levels that can be released into the environment through coal combustion processes. Disposal of coal fly ash in open and unlined ash ponds causes serious adverse environmental impacts to its elevated metals concentration and leaching into soils and groundwater. In the present research work, the water columns above the settled ash were sampled and cores of ash were collected over the course of 11 months from one class C and two class F ashes containing laboratory scale ash ponds. Samples were analysed for pH and metals. The arsenic, chromium were found to increase with aging of ash ponds containing class F ash while the concentration of all metals deceased in ash pond with class C ash. However, the free water column metals concentration was above 150 pbb, way above drinking water standard.

Index Terms—Ash pond, fly ash, metals, leaching, thermal power plant.

Lokeshappa B is with Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India and the Department of Studies in Civil Engineering, University BDT College of Engineering, Davangere, Karnataka, India (e-mail: lokeshappa_b@iitb.ac.in)
Anil Kumar Dikshit is with Environmental Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India and School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (e-mail: dikshit@iitb.ac.in)

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Cite: Lokeshappa B. and Anil Kumar Dikshit, "Fate of Metals in Coal Fly Ash Ponds," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 43-48, 2012.