Recent Research in Science and Technology 2011, 3(1): 05-08 ISSN: 2076-5061 www.recent-science.com Environmental Science NANOPARTICLES ASSISTED REMEDIATION FOR MOLASSES BASED DISTILLERY W ASTE CONTAMINATED GROUNDWATER Ashutosh Agarwal 1  , Himanshu Joshi 1 and Anil Kumar 2 1 Department of Hydrology, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, 247667, India 2 Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, 247667, India Abstract Remediation of contaminated groundwater of any molasses based distillery using nanomaterials may prove to be one of the effective treatment methods. For this purpose magnetite (Fe3O4) nanoparticles were synthesized by the reduction of anhydrous ferric chloride (FeCl3) in natural environment. These nanoparticles were characterized using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques. Due to their infinitesimally small size, the particles were employed for the remediation of contaminated groundwater sample of a distillery. Remarkable decline in the values of color, TOC and TDS were observed in four days upon treatment of 100 mL sample with 0.22 g of freshly synthesized magnetite nanoparticles. Keywords: Groundwater, Distillery, Magnetite, Nanoparticles, Remediation  Corresponding Author, Email: wheland@rediffmail.com Introduction The cane sugar molasses-based distillery industry, which manufactures rectified spirit for use both as industrial alcohol and for human consumption, is considered to be one of the most polluting industries. Today there are about 295 distilleries in India with an installed capacity of 3198 million liters (L) of alcohol production per annum. About 15 L of wastewater is produced per L of alcohol production. It is one of the most complex, troublesome and strongest organic industrial effluents, having extremely high color, total organic carbon (TOC), total dissolved solids (TDS), chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) values. Raw spent wash (wastewater), generated from distillation of fermented wash, is deep brown in color, acidic in nature (low pH) with high concentrations of organic material and suspended solid. It cannot be directly discharged into rivers or on land without treatment due to its deleterious effect on human health and the environment. Cost-effective management has not hitherto been possible. Due to the high TOC and BOD values of raw spent wash, application of anaerobic treatment technology (involving biogas recovery) has been reported to be highly effective 1-5 . In recent years, a great deal of attentions has been focused onto the application of nanostructured materials as adsorbents or catalysts to remove toxic and harmful substances from wastewater and air 6-7 . The application of nanotechnology is showing promising results for the remediation of contaminants. Reactive nanoparticles appear to be useful in remediating groundwater 8 . Iron nanoparticles are increasingly being applied in site remediation and hazardous waste treatment. Over the last few years, nano zero valent iron (nZVI) has been extensively used in the degradation of toxic and hazardous organic pollutants. These include the degradation of lindane and astrazine 9 and pentachlorophenol 10 . Efforts to study the reductive capacity of nano zero valent metals have focused not only on halogenated hydrocarbons (specifically chlorinated e.g. DDT, DDD, DDE) 11 , but also on contamination of water due to nitrate 12 and arsenic 13-14 . In this research communication the synthesis, characterization and application of magnetite (Fe 3 O 4 ) nanoparticles for providing remediation to the contaminated groundwater of a distillery has been reported. Methodology The synthesis of nanoscale Fe 3 O 4 was carried out using sodium borohydride (NaBH 4 ) as the reductant. 100 mL (0.25 M) of sodium borohydride (NaBH 4 ) aqueous solution was added drop wise with constant vigorous stirring to 100 mL (0.045 M) of ferric chloride (FeCl 3 ) aqueous solution in natural environment. After constant vigorous stirring for about 20 minutes, jet- black precipitates were obtained. These precipitates were separated from the solution by centrifuging the product on a centrifuge machine at 1200 rpm for 10 min. The particles were then washed 3 to 4 times using 150 mL of anhydrous methanol and instantaneously after washing the jet-black particles were dried under vacuum at 80ºC for 4 h. Soon after drying the particles