Over the past 25 years, about 750,000 sites with potential contamination have been reported to federal or state authorities. Heavy metals are the largest class of contaminants and also the most difficult to treat. This work focuses on the removal of lead from aqueous solution.

Lead pollution impacts all the systems of the human body. Many of the methods utilized to remove lead from wastewater have shortcomings. Alkali Ash Material Permeable Reactive Barrier (AAM-PRB) is a newly developed novel material made with fly ash alkali activating solution and filler material (sand and coarse aggregates). AAM-PRB was used to remove lead (Pb) from contaminated water. AAM-PRB materials with high permeability were created. Permeability must be high for a reactive barrier material, in the range of 10-2 cm/sec to 10-1 cm/sec. AAM - PRB from three ash sources with permeability of 10-1 cm/sec were produced and crushed into pellets. Effectiveness of the various barriers was determined by batch and column tests. Laboratory experiments indicate lead ion reduces from 1000 ppm to less than 2 ppm with 10 liters of solution and Lead ion from 10 ppm to less than 0.01 ppm. Analyses were performed by Atomic adsorption techniques.