Desorption of organochlorine pesticides from historically contaminated sediments into water-biofuel mixtures

Gasoline spills in surface waters generally volatilize due to their low miscibility and high volatility. However, biofuel blends may contain ethanol, a compound completely miscible in water. As hazardous components of gasoline are more soluble in ethanol than in water, the presence of ethanol increases the solubilization of these components, such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX), in surface water. Furthermore, many of these spills may occur in water bodies that have sediments that are historically contaminated with persistent organic contaminants such as organochlorine pesticides. High concentrations of ethanol in the water column, along with solubilized components of gasoline, may increase the desorption of organochlorine pesticides from the sediment. Thus spills of ethanol/gasoline fuel blends have the potential of increasing concentrations of hazardous compounds in rivers and lakes, resulting in increased risk for human and ecological exposure. Using UNIFAC to calculate activity coefficients, one can predict the enhancement of the solubility of pesticides in the aqueous phase as the ethanol fraction increases. Moreover, by predicting the solubility of pesticides in both the aqueous phase and an organic liquid phase, one can construct ternary phase diagrams that show the partitioning behavior of pesticides as a function of ethanol fraction. Such information is useful in estimating the amount of desorption from contaminated sediments that may occur in the presence of biofuel spills. In order to confirm the predicted values, experiments have been conducted to measure the impact of ethanol on the partitioning coefficients of pesticides.