Atrazine Adsorption Potential of Leonardite from Mae Moh Power Plant

Leonardite is an immature coal from the power plant, which we obtained from Lampang province, Thailand. It is known to contain relatively high humic substance making it suitable as the soil conditioner in agricultural aspect and as an adsorbent. Our objectives were: [1] to determine the leonardite physical and chemical properties (e.g., cation exchange capacity, organic matter content, and electron microscope imaging), and (2) to quantify the adsorption efficiency of atrazine from the soil. We used varied amount of leonardite ranging from 0.05 to 1.60 g to adsorb 8 mg L-1 of atrazine from aqueous solution in a batch experiment. This experiment was achieved within 48 hours so that the equilibrium time and isotherm parameters can be determined. The uncarbonized leonardite characteristic revealed that it could adsorb atrazine as its surface possesses mesopore type, relatively high cation exchange capacity (59.89 cmol Kg(-1)), and high organic matter of 21.62 %. The isotherm study showed the equilibrium time of 24 hours and adsorption isotherm was Langmuir with qmax of 3.9683 mg g(-1). This study provides proof that leonardite used in the agricultural field can also be useful to adsorb atrazine and simultaneously slow the percolating process of atrazine before contaminating groundwater.