Abstract
To predict Zn behaviour in soil, the retention properties of clay minerals plays a relevant role. In a continental environment, Ca is the main cation in solution. Soil reactivity may be reduced to sorption properties of Zn and Ca on illite and smectite, the major clay minerals in soil. With this assumption, a multi-site ion exchanger model has successfully been applied to the Zn sorption on Ca-illite and Ca-smectite. New batch experiments performed in this study enabled to collect sorption data for Zn on Ca-illite by concentration and pH isotherms. Zn sorption reversibility was then verified. These sorption data were modelled successfully with a multi-site ion exchanger (MSIE) formalism by using four sorption site types. Zn sorption isotherms on smectite were retrieved from literature and interpreted following the MSIE formalism. The obtained selectivity coefficients may be thereafter put into ion exchange models to describe the Zn sorption in natural environments.
Highlights
In the context of environmental monitoring of nuclear sites, or to evaluate the impact of metallurgic facilities, migration of Zn in soils, sediments and aquifers needs to be understood and well predicted
Migration of trace elements is partly governed by chemical sorption phenomena on mineral surfaces, especially on clay minerals known to have negatively surface charges compensated by cations [1]
A multi-site ion exchanger model [4] using sorption property of pure smectite recently described with success the sorption of Zn on natural sediment under static conditions [5]
Summary
In the context of environmental monitoring of nuclear sites, or to evaluate the impact of metallurgic facilities, migration of Zn in soils, sediments and aquifers needs to be understood and well predicted. A multi-site ion exchanger model [4] using sorption property of pure smectite recently described with success the sorption of Zn on natural sediment under static conditions [5]. In this macroscopic approach, sorption sites are described by their sorption capacities (expressed in mol/kg of solid phase) and their affinity towards chemical elements. A thermodynamic multi-site ion exchange model was used to interpret these new experimental data and those previously acquired on Ca-smectite [2] and Na-illite [3]
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