Effect of organic fractions on sorption properties of organic pollutants in sediments

Humic substrates are a major fraction of sediment organic matters, and the sorption of hydrophobic organic chemicals by humic substrates influences their behavior and fate in sediment. In this paper, organic matters were divided into non-humic substrates and humic substrates. Non-humic substrates include acid leaching fraction, acid extracted fraction, and lipid; humic substrates were fractionated into Ca-binding-FA(fulvic acid), Ca-binding-HA (humic acid), oxide-FA, oxide-HA, and humin. To study the effect of organic fractions on sorption properties, sorption kinetic and equilibrium sorption experiments of phenanthrene and pentachlorophenol (PCP) in five sediments were carried out. The results showed that the contents of acid leaching fraction and oxide-binding-HA were the main fractions to affect the sorption rate constant, and for the sorption capacity of phenanthrene, humin was the major fraction, followed by oxide-binding-HA, oxide-binding-FA, and so on. While for PCP, the factors of influence on sorption capacity were mainly CEC, Ca-binding-FA, and Ca-binding-HA.