Sorption of lindane to river biofilms, suspended particles and sediments in the presence and absence of Cr(VI) and As(V)

Few study has focused on the effects of Cr(VI) and As(V) which are often in the form of anionic groups in natural aquatic environment on the sorption of dissolved hydrophobic organic pollutants (HOPs) onto natural solid materials from water. In this study, we compared the sorption thermodynamics of lindene as a model dissolved HOP on biofilms, suspended particles and surface sediments collected from the same river in the presence and absence of Cr(VI) and As(V). Visual MINTEQ (version 3.0) was applied to calculate Cr(VI) and As(V) species in the sorption system. CrO42- (89%) was the main Cr(VI) species and HAsO42- (78%) and H2AsO4- (22%) were the As(V) species. Compared with Freundlich and the dual reactive domain model, linear model gave a better fit for the lindane sorption isotherms on the biofilms, particles and sediments (Fig.1). For the lindane sorption on the biofilms, the linear model distribution coefficient (KL) were reduced by 48.0% and 47.6% in the presence of Cr(VI) and As(V), respectively; For that on the suspended particles, KL were reduced by 6.2% and 10.8%, respectively; For the sediments, KL were reduced by 30.2% and 34.5%, respectively. In general, the presence of Cr(VI) and As(V) inhibited lindane sorption onto the three solids and inhibition level decreased in the order biofilms > sediments > particles. In contrast to the promotion of metal cations on the dissolved HOPs sorption onto natural solid materials, anionic Cr(VI) and As(V) groups suppressed the sorption. This indicated that anionic Cr(VI) and As(V) groups might occupy some sorption sites on solids and then occurred competitive sorption with lindane. Taking account of the errors in experiment, effects on the sorption between Cr(VI) and As(V) has no significant difference. This shown that the type of metal has little effect on the HOPs sorption onto natural solids. This result was consistent with that in other related studis. In addition, we inferred that the differences of component, structure and origin of the three solids resulted in the differences of influence on the lindane sorption by Cr(VI) and As(V). Acknowledgments: This study was supported by NSFC (21277056, 20877033). Fig. 1 Sorption isotherms of lindane on the biofilms, particles and sediments fitted using linear model in the presence and absence of Cr(VI) and As(V)