Behaviour of Metals in Coal Fly Ash Ponds

The coal fly ashes contain toxic metals in much higher concentrations that are released into the environment by thermal power plants based on coal combustion. Disposal of coal fly ash in open and unlined ash ponds causes serious adverse environmental impacts due to its elevated metals concentrations and its leaching into soils and groundwater. Fate of metals transformed from the three fly ash pond models containing different fly ashes from three thermal power plants to the environment is demonstrated in this paper. The arsenic, and chromium increased with age of ash ponds FA1 and FA3 while in ash pond FA2, concentrations of all metals deceased but the free water column metals concentration was above 150 μg/L.