Understanding the retention and fate prediction of copper ions in single and competitive system in two soils: An experimental and numerical investigation

Poly Buragohain; Ankit Garg; Song Feng; Peng Lin; S Sreedeep

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.03.334

Understanding the retention and fate prediction of copper ions in single and competitive system in two soils: An experimental and numerical investigation

Sci Total Environ. 2018 Sep 1:634:951-962. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.03.334. Epub 2018 Apr 11.

Authors

Poly Buragohain¹, Ankit Garg², Song Feng³, Peng Lin⁴, S Sreedeep⁵

Affiliations

¹ Mahindra Ecole Centrale, Hyderabad, India.
² Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Shantou University, China. Electronic address: ankit@stu.edu.cn.
³ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong SAR, China. Electronic address: sfengaa@connect.ust.hk.
⁴ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Shantou University, China. Electronic address: plin@stu.edu.cn.
⁵ Civil Engineering Department, IIT Guwahati, India. Electronic address: srees@iitg.ernet.in.

PMID: 29660889
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.03.334

Abstract

The concept of sponge city has become very popular with major thrust on design of waste containment systems such as biofilter and green roofs. Factors that may influence pollutant ions retention in these systems will be soil type and also their interactions. The study investigated single and competitive interaction of copper in two soils and its influence on the fate prediction. Freundlich and Langmuir nonlinear isotherms were selected to quantify the retention results. Series of numerical simulations were conducted to model 1 D advection-dispersion transport for the two soils and analyse the role of isotherms. The results indicated that contaminant fate prediction of copper-soil interaction based on the two non-linear isotherms was different for both single and that in competition. Retardation factor obtained from Freundlich (R_F) isotherm predicts more than Langmuir (R_La). This observation is more explicit at the higher range of equilibrium concentration. Fate prediction based on retardation value obtained from retention isotherms exhibited some anomalous trends contradicting the experimental findings due to inherent assumptions in governing equations. The necessity to have an approximate assessment of contaminant concentration in the field to effectively use contaminant retention results for accurate fate prediction is highlighted here. The study is important for modellers in design or analysis of biolfilter system (sponge city), where multiple ions tend to exist in waste water.

Keywords: Copper; Fate prediction; Interaction; Isotherms; Retardation factor; Sponge city.