Reactive reductants of cement/Fe(II) systems in dechlorinating chlorinated hydrocarbons have not been identified. The previous studies showed that a hematite/CaO/Fe(II) system had TCE degradation characteristics similar to those of cement/Fe(II) systems with regard to degradation kinetics and that lime (CaO) plays an important role in enhancing the reactivity for TCE dechlorination. The current study shows identified the formation of gypsum ($CaSO_4$) in the hematite/CaO/$FeSO_4$ system through the XRD analysis. The amounts of the gypsum increased with increment of the initial CaO dose. However, when CaO in the hematite/CaO/$FeSO_4$ system was replaced with gypsum, TCE degradation was not observed. Ca-removed Portland cement extracts (CPCX) in combination with $FeSO_4(CPCX/FeSO_4)$ showed no TCE degradation. On the other hands, the Portland cement extracts (PCX) in the presence of $FeSO_4(PCX/FeSO_4)$ and CPCX/CaO/$FeSO_4$ systems degraded 0.2 mM TCE within 5 days, indicating that CaO also played an important role dechlorination reactions in the systems. The pseudo-first-order rate constants (k) of the CPCX/CaO/$FeSO_4$ systems were 0.20, 0.24, and 0.72 $day^{-1}$, when the CaO dosages were 25, 50 and 75 g/L, respectively. The XRD analyses showed identified the common peaks having the d-values of 3.02, 2.27, and 1.87 in the reaction systems that showed TCE degradation. However, it was not possible to clearly identify the crystalline minerals having the three peaks from the references in JCPDS cards. This study reveals that the reactive agents in the cement/Fe(II) and the hematite/Fe(II) systems are likely to be those containing CaO and Fe(II).

Keywords: Cement;Hematite;Fe(II);CaO;TCE;Reductive dechlorination;