Heavy Metals and Refractory Organic Compounds in Khartoum State’s Groundwater Resources

Ihab Hassan, Basheer M. Elhassan and Mustafa Abbas Mustafa
Additional contact information
Ihab Hassan: Omdurman Ahlia University, Faculty of Environmental Science, Environmental Technology Department,, Khartoum
Basheer M. Elhassan: University of Khartoum, Faculty of Engineering, Chemical Engineering Department, Khartoum
Mustafa Abbas Mustafa: University of Khartoum, Materials and Nanotechnology Research Centre, Faculty of Engineering, Khartoum

European Journal of Engineering and Technology Research, 2017, vol. 2, issue 8, 13-16

Abstract: Groundwater has many characteristics that make it preferable as water supply. But once becomes contaminated, its location and low rate of replacement with fresh water makes it difficult to return it to its pristine state. Toxic and organic chemical pollutants pose threat to the safety of water resources in Khartoum. Contamination of the river Nile system leads to contamination of groundwater resources.Present study aimed to evaluate the current chemical quality of Khartoum state groundwater resources in terms of its heavy metals and refractory organic content. A comparison of the obtained result with national and international standards was also carried out.To realize the objective of this study, a quantitative analysis of nine samples collected from three boreholes named A (Dar Alsalam block (21) ), B (Alkaadarow Almadaris) and C (Alazhari block (15)) during three seasons; autumn, winter and summer were investigated. Heavy metals concentrations (Pb, Cr, Cd and Fe) were determined using Inductively Coupled Plasma- Atomic Emission Spectrometer (ICP- AES). For refractory organic compounds, TOC and BOD5 tests were carried out, the ultimate value (BODu) was calculated as 1.7 BOD5 and then the difference between TOC and BODu was estimated as the concentration of refractory organic compounds.The result showed that groundwater boreholes were safe with respect to cadmium, iron and chromium pollutants, but they contain high levels of lead and refractory organic compounds. The concentrations of lead exceeded both national and international permissible levels which are expected to be due to infiltration of poorly treated sewage and some industrial effluents or from the process of recharging groundwater by contaminated surface water. Since there are no treatment processes in water supply treatment plants targeting the removal of these pollutants, populations consuming this water are expected to be exposed to many health hazards.

Keywords: Groundwater pollution; Heavy metals; BOD; Refractory organic compounds (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://eu-opensci.org/index.php/ejeng/article/view/60419 Abstract page (text/html)
https://eu-opensci.org/index.php/ejeng/article/download/60419/11799 Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:epw:ejeng0:v:2:y:2017:i:8:id:60419

DOI: 10.24018/ejeng.2017.2.8.419

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in European Journal of Engineering and Technology Research from European Open Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Support ().