Migration and adsorption of naphthalene in road-deposited sediments from stormwater runoff: Impact of the particle size

Abstract

In this study, we explored the impact of RDS particle size on the migration dynamics of RDS and naphthalene through rigorous wash-off experiments. The results illuminated that smaller RDS particles showed higher mobility in stormwater runoff. On the other hand, RDS particles larger than 150 μm showed migration ratios below 2 %, suggesting that naphthalene adsorbed on larger RDS primarily migrated in dissolved form. Furthermore, we investigated the migration behaviors of RDS and naphthalene under varied conditions, including rainfall intensity, duration, and naphthalene concentrations. Larger rainfall intensity promoted the naphthalene release from RDS, while long rainfall duration (≥10 min) impeded the migration velocities (≤2.91 %/5 min for RDS, and ≤3.32 %/5 min for corresponding naphthalene) of RDS and naphthalene. Additionally, higher naphthalene concentrations in RDS diminished migration ratios of dissolved naphthalene. Significantly, the maximum uptake of naphthalene on RDS was 6.02 mg/g by the adsorption Langmuir isotherm. Importantly, the adsorption process of naphthalene in RDS is primarily governed by the physical adsorption, as demonstrated by the successive desorption experiments, which showed the desorption rate of up to 87.32 %. Moreover, advanced characterizations such as XPS, FTIR and Raman spectra further confirmed the physical nature of the adsorption process. These findings may help the understanding of the migration behavior of other pollutants in urban surface particulates.