Interaction of Cr(III) with the humus acids of soil, water, and bottom sediments

Abstract

The interaction of Cr(III) with humus acids [fulvic (FA) and humic (HA) acids] was studied in the systems Cr(III)-FA, Cr(III)-HA, and Cr(III)-FA-HA. Chromium(III) reacts with FA extracted from the headwaters of the Moscow River and from the Krapivenka River (a tributary of Lake Seliger) to form a highly soluble high-molecular-weight Cr(III)-hydroxofulvate complexes with \(\bar \beta _{11} \) = 1.93 × 106 and 5.70 × 106, respectively. Humic acids extracted from peat in the Tver area and the sapropel of Lake Seliger behave as complexing sorbents with conditional affinity constants logβ = 3.78 and 3.23 for Cr(III) sorption at HA sites in the peat and sapropel, respectively. In the three-component system Cr(III)-FA-HA, the Cr(III) distribution coefficient between solution and precipitate is controlled by the pH value and FA content in the solution and decreases by 1–1.5 orders of magnitude with increasing fulvic acid content.