Abstract
Soil pollution by the presence of different contaminants (e.g. heavy metal ions or pesticides) is one of the biggest problems worldwide. The positive affinity of natural humic acids towards these contaminants might contribute to the soil and ground water protection; therefore it is necessary to study the reactivity and barrier properties of humic acids. An original reactivity-mapping tool based on diffusion techniques designed to study the reactivity and barrier properties of polyelectrolytes was developed and tested on humic acids. The results of diffusion experiments demonstrate that the electrostatic interactions between humic acids functioning as a polyelectrolyte interpenetrated in a supporting hydrogel matrix (agarose) and cationic dye (methylene blue) as a model solute have a crucial impact on the rate of diffusion processes and on the barrier properties of hydrogels. The intensity of interactions was evaluated by fundamental diffusion parameters (effective diffusion coefficients and breakthrough time). The impact of modification of humic acids was also studied by means of diffusion experiments conducted on two types of standard humic acids (Leonardite 1S104H) and humic acids with selectively methylated carboxylic groups.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the project “Materials Research Centre at FCH BUT—Sustainability and Development” No. LO1211 of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic and by project “Multiscale study on the structure–transport–flow relationship in the behavior of biopolymer–based hydrogels” COST LD15047.
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Smilek, J., Sedlacek, P., Lastuvkova, M. et al. Transport of Organic Compounds Through Porous Systems Containing Humic Acids. Bull Environ Contam Toxicol 98, 373–377 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-016-1926-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-016-1926-0