Effect of dissolved organic matter and heavy metals ions on sorption of phenanthrene at sedimentary particle scale

Abstract

Human activities significantly increase the input of offshore heavy metals and organic pollutants. Although particle-scale and heterogeneous organic matters are fundamentally important to the fate of hydrophobic organic compounds (HOCs), deep understanding of the adsorption mechanism of HOCs on soil/sediment particles under the influence of heavy metal and organic pollution input is needed. This study investigates the effects of exotic DOM and heavy metals ions on the phenanthrene adsorption on sediment fractions. The adsorption experiments demonstrated that exotic DOM increased phenanthrene adsorption amount of sediment, with the greatest enhancement on clay particles (<2 µm). Nevertheless, the mechanism was differentiated accordingly to particle dimensions in terms of increased binding coefficients and mobility of phenanthrene. Furthermore, the introduction of heavy metals considerably enhanced the nonlinear sorption of phenanthrene. The Freundlich exponent N reduced by 0.01–0.24 when adding Cu2+, Zn2+ and Pb2+, especially for coarse particles (31–63 µm) fraction. In comparison, the enhancement of nonlinearity adsorption by Cu2+ and Zn2+ is significantly lower than Pb2+ ions. To our knowledge, the particle-scale study broadens the horizon of environmental fate and ecological risk of HOCs in intertidal regions, which is significantly affected by tidal action.