Shereen S. Ahamed and Mervat A. Hamed( 2010). Reducing volatile organic compounds during the maturity stage of different composted organic wastes by using some clay minerals as a natural remediation Fayoum J. Agric. Res. & Dev., Vol.24, No.1, January, 2010
Abstract: A trail was carried out on reducing the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) during the maturity stage of different composted organic wastes (i.e., town refuse, sugarcane factories, animal residues and plant residues) by using three kinds of clay minerals (i.e., montmorillonite, kaolinite and attapulgite) as a natural remediation. The total released volatile organic compounds as air organic pollutants from each of the tested composted organic wastes were determined by using the GC-mass method. The released VOCs are namely ethanol, acetic acid, acetone, n-propanol, cyclohexane, n-heptane, octane, benzene, chlorobenzene, ethylbenzene, toluene, dichloromethane, xylene, methyl chloride and trichloroethane. The obtained data showed that the released VOCs recorded the greatest values in case of the composted sugarcane wastes, while the lowest ones were associated with the composted town refuse wastes. On the other hand, the composted animal and plant residues exhibited values of released air volatile organic pollutants represent an intermediate case between the other composted organic substances. Thus, it could be arranged the different studied composted organic wastes according to the released amounts of VOCs values in an ascending order of composted sugarcane wastes > composted plant residues > composted animal residues > composted town refuse wastes. Accordingly, composted sugarcane wastes that showed the greatest released VOCs values were chosen for a natural remediation by using the tested clay minerals (i.e., montmorillonite, kaolinite and Attapulgite) at applied two rates of 5 and 10 % and during two interval periods of 24 and 48 hours. The obtained results showed that the percentages of released VOCs as a result of treating composted sugarcane wastes with the clay minerals of montmorillonite, kaolinite, and attapulgite at the rates of 5 & 10 % reached 91.20 & 87.50, 78.76 & 60.42 and 52.46 & 35.42 % of the released amounts from the untreated ones at the fixed time of 24 h vs the corresponding values of 9.49 & 8.38, 6.25 & 6.04 and 5.89 & 4.06 % at an interval period of 48 h, respectively. So, it could be categorized the tested clay minerals as a natural remediation according to their immobilization for the released VOCs into an ascending order: attapulgite > kaolinite > montmorillonite.
Keywords: (Composted organic wastes, volatile organic compounds, remediation of released air pollutants by using clay minerals. )
