The role of Fe oxyhydroxide coating, illite clay, and peat moss in nanoscale titanium dioxide (nTiO2) retention and transport in geochemically heterogeneous media

Natural media such as soil and sediment contain mineralogical and organic components with distinct chemical, surface, and electrostatic properties. To better understand the role of various soil and sediment components on particle transport, columns were packed with quartz sand and natural sediment with added Fe oxyhydroxide coating, illite clay, and peat moss to investigate how these added components influence nTiO₂ retention and transport in geochemically heterogeneous medium. Results showed that nTiO₂ transport was low at pH 5, attributable to the electrostatic attraction between positively-charged nTiO₂ and negatively-charged medium. While illite did not notably affect nTiO₂ transport at pH 5, Fe oxyhydroxide coating increased nTiO₂ transport due to electrostatic repulsion between Fe oxyhydroxide and nTiO₂. Peat moss also increased nTiO₂ transport at pH 5, attributable to the increased DOC concentration, which resulted in higher DOC adsorption to nTiO₂ and intensified electrostatic repulsion between nTiO₂ and the medium. At pH 9, nTiO₂ transport was high due to the electrostatic repulsion between negatively-charged nTiO₂ and medium surfaces. Fe oxyhydroxide coating at pH 9 slightly delayed nTiO₂ transport due to electrostatic attraction, while illite clay and peat moss substantially inhibited nTiO₂ transport via straining/entrapment or electrostatic attraction. Overall, this study demonstrated that pH has a considerable effect on how minerals and organic components of a medium influence nTiO₂ transport. At low pH, electrostatic attraction was the dominant mechanism, therefore, nTiO₂ mobility was low regardless of the differences in mineralogical and organic components. Conversely, nTiO₂ mobility was high at high pH and nTiO₂ retention was dominated by straining/entrapment and sensitive to the mineralogical and organic composition of the medium.

Different partition of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon on environmental particulates in freshwater: Microplastics in comparison to natural sediment

Microplastics pollution in the aquatic ecosystems has aroused increasing concerns in recent years. Though microplastics are known to sorb organic contaminants from water, the interaction mechanisms between microplastics and organic chemicals are not yet well understood. Here we investigated the partition characteristics of phenanthrene (Phe) in three mass-produced plastic particles, including polyethylene (PE), polystyrene (PS) and polyvinylchloride (PVC)， and one natural sediment, as a comparison. The sorption kinetics of Phe onto microplastics and natural sediment were successfully described by the pseudo-second-order model (R² > 0.992), while the equilibrium data were best-fitted to the Langmuir isotherm (R² > 0.995). Compared with natural sediment, microplastics exhibited higher capacities for Phe which followed an order of PE > PS > PVC. As the aqueous concentration of pyrene (Pyr) increased, both uptakes and distribution coefficients (K_d) of Phe within the solids decreased, with natural sediment giving the largest decline. Although proportions of Phe desorbed from the contaminated microplastics were low, due to the high Phe uptake, microplastics released larger amounts of the sorbed Phe to water than the natural sediment during the desorption process. Given their minimal abundance relative to natural sediment, microplastics may play a less important role in the transport of organic pollutants in a natural aquatic environment.

Cu and Zn adsorption to a heterogeneous natural sediment: Influence of leached cations and natural organic matter

Adsorption of heavy metals by natural sediments has important implications to the fate and transport of contaminants in subsurface environments. Although the importance of major multivalent cations and dissolved organic matter (DOM) in heavy metal adsorption had been previously demonstrated, the leaching of major cations and DOM from sediments and its influence on heavy metal adsorption have not been fully examined. In this study, the concentrations of Ca, Mg, Al, Fe, and natural organic matter that leached from a natural sediment in Cu and Zn adsorption experiments were measured and used in surface complexation models to elucidate their effects on Cu and Zn adsorption. Experimental results showed that the leaching of cations and DOM was substantial and pH-dependent. The leached concentrations of Ca and Mg were reasonably simulated based on BaCl2 extractable Ca and Mg at pH < 5, and Al and Fe activities were accurately predicted for specific pH ranges by assuming solubility control by Al(OH)3 and Fe(OH)3. Visual MINTEQ simulations showed that the leached cations markedly decreased Cu adsorption at pH < 6 and Zn adsorption at pH 3-8. Due to varying affinity for DOM between Cu and Zn, DOM was found to decrease Cu adsorption at pH > 6 due to formation of Cu-DOM aqueous complexes, but increase Zn adsorption at pH 4-7 due to formation of aqueous complexes between DOM and major cations, which reduced competition from these cations against Zn for binding sites on the sediment.