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Silica colloids as non-carriers facilitate Pb2+ transport in saturated porous media under a weak adsorption condition: effects of Pb2+ concentrations

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Abstract

Transport of environmental pollutants in groundwater systems can be greatly influenced by colloids. In this study, the cotransport of Pb2+ and silica (SiO2) colloids at different Pb2+ concentrations was systematically investigated by batch adsorption and saturated sand column experiments. Results showed that SiO2 colloids had low adsorption capacity for Pb2+ (less than 1% of the input) compared with sands. In saturated porous media, SiO2 colloids showed a high mobility; however, with the increase of Pb2+ concentration in the sand column, the mobility of SiO2 colloids gradually decreased. Notably, SiO2 colloids could facilitate Pb2+ transport, although they did not serve as effective carriers of Pb2+. Under the condition of low Pb2+ concentration, SiO2 colloids promoted the Pb2+ transport mainly through the way of “transport channel,” while changing the porosity of the medium and masking medium adsorption sites were the main mechanisms of SiO2 colloid–facilitated Pb2+ transport under the condition of high Pb2+ concentration. The discovery of this non-adsorption effect of colloids would improve our understanding of colloid-facilitated Pb2+ transport in saturated porous media, which provided new insights into the role of colloids, especially colloids with weak Pb2+ adsorption capacity, in Pb2+ occurrence and transport in soil-groundwater systems.

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Funding

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41601514, 41672230, 51961145106), Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Action Plan project (19ZR1459300, 19230742400), Shanghai Peak Discipline Project (0200121005/053, 2019010202), State Key Laboratory of Petroleum Pollution Control (PPC2016019), and the International Exchange Program for Graduate Students, Tongji University (No. 201902053).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Civil Engineering, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai, 200092, People’s Republic of China

    Chaomeng Dai, Hui Zhou, Xueji You & Shuguang Liu

  2. School of Environmental and Geographical Sciences, Shanghai Normal University, No. 100 Guilin Rd., Shanghai, 200234, People’s Republic of China

    Yanping Duan & Yaojen Tu

  3. The Yangtze River Water Environment Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai, 200092, People’s Republic of China

    Shuguang Liu

  4. Sino-France Institute of Earth Systems Science, Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, People’s Republic of China

    Feng Zhou

  5. Department Environment Engineering, Faculty Engineering & Green Technology, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, 31900, Kampar, Perak, Malaysia

    Leong Kah Hon

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  1. Chaomeng Dai
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  2. Hui Zhou
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Correspondence to Yanping Duan.

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Dai, C., Zhou, H., You, X. et al. Silica colloids as non-carriers facilitate Pb2+ transport in saturated porous media under a weak adsorption condition: effects of Pb2+ concentrations. Environ Sci Pollut Res 27, 15188–15197 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-08064-0

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