Fullerol-facilitated transport of copper ions in water-saturated porous media: Influencing factors and mechanism

Yue Yuan; Xianjia Peng

doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2017.07.001

Fullerol-facilitated transport of copper ions in water-saturated porous media: Influencing factors and mechanism

J Hazard Mater. 2017 Oct 15:340:96-103. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2017.07.001. Epub 2017 Jul 3.

Authors

Yue Yuan¹, Xianjia Peng²

Affiliations

¹ National Engineering Laboratory for Industrial Wastewater Treatment, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China; Beijing Key Laboratory of Industrial Wastewater Treatment and Resource Recovery, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; Sino-Danish Center for Education and Research, Beijing, 100190, China.
² National Engineering Laboratory for Industrial Wastewater Treatment, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China; Beijing Key Laboratory of Industrial Wastewater Treatment and Resource Recovery, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China. Electronic address: xjpeng@rcees.ac.cn.

PMID: 28711837
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2017.07.001

Abstract

The environmental safety of carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) has become a hot spot of worldwide research work. The high stability, mobility and adsorption capability of CNMs may give rise to the enhancement of heavy metal transport. However, the understanding of facilitated transport of heavy metal ions by CNMs is still limited. In this research, fullerol nanoparticles (C₆₀(OH)_n) were used as a typical CNM to investigate its effect on Cu²⁺ transport in the water-saturated porous media. Column experiments showed that C₆₀(OH)_n could facilitate the transport of Cu²⁺. Meanwhile, flow velocity showed little impact on the facilitated transport while pH and fullerol concentration played an important role. The mechanism of fullerol-facilitated transport of Cu²⁺ was mainly due to the much higher adsorption capacity of C₆₀(OH)_n than that of the porous media. Besides, the existence of C₆₀(OH)_n decreased the adsorption kinetics of Cu²⁺ on the porous media, which led to a decreasing chance for Cu²⁺ to be retained and thus enhanced the transport of Cu²⁺.

Keywords: Copper ions; Facilitated transport; Fullerol nanoparticles; Porous media.