A doctoral thesis was researched at the College of Engineering, University of Basrah (Modeling an effective permeation barrier for the treatment of polluted groundwater) for the student, Resala Abd al-Ilah Muhammad

The thesis dealt with the study of pollutants for the purpose of treatment and the pollutants that were selected are benzene, coloring, ethylbenzene and xylene, which are more toxic and difficult compounds because of their high solubility in water, which makes them travel large distances in groundwater. In addition, BTEX compounds were classified as priority pollutants because exposure leads to Adverse health effects including cancer Permeable reactive barriers are one of the most promising solutions for groundwater solutions, where materials with the ability to remove pollutants are placed under the surface of the ground towards the pollutant run-off. In the current study, mature granular activated sludge (GDAS) was used as a reactive medium for prb batch test to determine the ability of active dry sludge to remove BTEX under different conditions The results of these experiments showed GDAS a good stable adsorbent for removing BTEX from aqueous solution. respectively. This efficiency depends mainly on the amount of adsorbent dose, contact time and pollutant concentration.