Microstructural Assessment of the Simultaneous Impact of Hydrocarbon Material and Heavy Metal on Sand-Bentonite Mixture Behavior

Adsorption has been proved to be the best process of water treatment because of its significant advantages. Clays and their minerals are abundant and cheap material successfully used for decades as an adsorbent for removing toxic heavy metals from aqueous solutions (Kashif Uddin., 2017). Environmental pollutants and their toxicity cause a major problem worldwide. New pollutants keep emerging and pose severe health and scientific challenges. Water pollution is one of the biggest environmental issue causing serious problems to living beings. The removal of various toxic substances from water and wastewater has been a core interest of many scientists and researchers around the globe over the past decades. Dyeing, battery, printing, mining, metallurgical engineering, electroplating, pigment, PVC stabilizers, nuclear power operations, electric appliances manufacturing, semiconductor, cosmetics, and so on belong to industries that generate various types of pollutants in wastewater effluent [Ali et al., 2007; Gupta et al., 2009]. By construction of engineered landfills, we can prevent the groundwater pollution. In industrialized countries, the use of compacted sand-bentonite mixture (SEB) alternatives to clay Liners due to low permeability and lack of vulnerability caused shrinkage cracks (Alston et al., 1997).