Sorption of Pentachlorophenol on Lake Aquatic Humic Matter

Abstract

The sorption of pentachlorophenol (PCP) onto the aquatic humic matter (HM) for very wide concentration range (60 ng PCP/L - 1 mg PCP/L) was investigated. The binding affinity increased significantly with the acidity of the solution. The dissolved organic carbon (DOC) normalized sorption coefficients (log KOC) of PCP were 3.39 at pH 3, 3.19 at pH 5.5 and 3.01 at pH 7. The binding of PCP took place via a two step binding mechanism: the rapid first step was followed by a second much slower one indicating that the surface of the HM is very heterogeneous containing binding sites with different binding affinities. It was possible to obtain a “fully saturated” HM-PCP adduct (also all possible micro-voids of the HM were occupied) in a very high PCP concentration. The log KOC value for the whole concentration range was slightly smaller than that obtained under very low PCP concentration level. The Langmuir isotherm was the most suitable for the whole concentration range of PCP, whereas the Freundlich model was the most suitable for the low concentration range of PCP. The dissimilarities between different sorption models were as a whole marginal and thus it is possible without significant loss of information to describe the PCP sorption with a linear model. The results verify that the conventional humic (HA) and fulvic (FA) acid type humic solutes of fresh waters account for the main part of the PCP sorption.