Impacts of heterogeneous organic matter on phenanthrene sorption--Different soil and sediment samples

Environmental Science & Technology
By: , and 

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Abstract

Organic petrography has been proposed as a tool for characterizing the heterogeneous organic matter present in soil and sediment samples. A new simplified method is proposed as a quantitative means of interpreting observed sorption behavior for phenanthrene and different soils and sediments based on their organic petrographical characterization. This method is tested under singe solute conditions and at phenanthrene concentration of 1 μg/L. Since the opaque organic matter fraction dominates the sorption process, we propose that by quantifying this fraction one can interpret organic content normalized sorption distribution coefficient (Koc) values for a sample. While this method was developed and tested for various samples within the same aquifer, in the current study the method is validated for soil and sediment samples from different sites that cover a wide range of organic matter origin, age, and organic content. All 10 soil and sediment samples studied had log Koc values for the opaque particles between 5.6 and 6.8. This range of Koc values illustrates the heterogeneity of opaque particles between sites and geological formations and thus the need to characterize the opaque fraction of materials on a site-by-site basis.

Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Impacts of heterogeneous organic matter on phenanthrene sorption--Different soil and sediment samples
Series title Environmental Science & Technology
DOI 10.1021/es010654n
Volume 35
Issue 23
Year Published 2001
Language English
Publisher American Chemical Society
Contributing office(s) Toxic Substances Hydrology Program
Description 7 p.
First page 4684
Last page 4690
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