Nanoparticles in glacial melt water

Abstract

The glacial melt runoff is mainly controlled by meteorological condition of that location. Water sampling has been done at four locations of glacial meltwater in the Shaune Garang catchment of Himachal Himalaya in the ablation season of year 2016 and analysed in the laboratory for ions and trace metal concentration while the pH, conductivity and DO has been measured on site with the help of HANNA (HI9829 Multi-parameter pH/ISE/EC/DO). The result reveals the presence of large amount of dissolved nanoparticles such as Fe, Mn, Cu, Al, Si with a higher concentration of Fe in the meltwater. The specific conductivity is found to be almost same at all sampled location while the pH varied from 7.2 to 8.4. The geological arrangement of the study area suggests that the existence of high Fe (iron) concentrations in the meltwater is due to the larger area of iron ore in the bedrock. The grouping of aqueous iron and colloidal or nanoparticle iron is the driving force for exiting of Fe species in the meltwater. The model output on the super saturation index (SI) suggests that all the sampling sites have mostly iron-oxide phases, therefore iron is supposed to be of higher concentration in colloidal form as iron oxides (oxy-hydroxides).