Abstract
Studying the transport of petroleum hydrocarbons in cadmium-/naphthalene-contaminated calcareous soils is crucial to comprehensive assessment of environmental risks and developing appropriate strategies to remediate petroleum hydrocarbons pollution in karst areas. In this study, n-hexadecane was selected as a model petroleum hydrocarbon. Batch experiments were conducted to explore the adsorption behavior of n-hexadecane on cadmium-/naphthalene-contaminated calcareous soils at various pH, and column experiments were performed to investigate the transport and retention of n-hexadecane under various flow velocity. The results showed that Freundlich model better described the adsorption behavior of n-hexadecane in all cases (R2 > 0.9). Under the condition of pH = 5, it was advantageous for soil samples to adsorb more n-hexadecane, and the maximum adsorption content followed the order of: cadmium/naphthalene-contaminated > uncontaminated soils. The transport of n-hexadecane in cadmium/naphthalene-contaminated soils at various flow velocity was well described by two kinetic sites model of Hydrus-1D with R2 > 0.9. Due to the increased electrostatic repulsion between n-hexadecane and soil particles, n-hexadecane was more easily able to breakthrough cadmium/naphthalene-contaminated soils. Compared to low flow velocity (1 mL/min), a higher concentration of n-hexadecane was determined at high flow velocity, with 67, 63, and 45% n-hexadecane in effluent from cadmium-contaminated soils, naphthalene-contaminated soils, and uncontaminated soils, respectively. These findings have important implications for the government of groundwater in calcareous soils from karst areas.
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Acknowledgements
This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51668006) and the Innovation Project of Guangxi Graduate Education (Nos. YCSW2021015 and YCBZ2021016).
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This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51668006) and the Innovation Project of Guangxi Graduate Education (Nos. YCSW2021015 and YCBZ2021016).
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All authors contributed to the study conception and approved the final manuscript design. The draft of manuscript was written by Yiting Huang. Review, editing, experimental design, material preparation, investigation, sample collection, data analysis, visualization and conceptualization were performed by Yankui Tang, Yi Liang, Zhenze Xie, Jipeng Wu, Jiajie Huang, Shanxiong Wei, Shaojiang Nie, and Tao Jiang.
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Huang, Y., Tang, Y., Liang, Y. et al. Transport and retention of n-hexadecane in cadmium-/naphthalene-contaminated calcareous soil sampled in a karst area. Environ Geochem Health 45, 8881–8895 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-023-01664-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-023-01664-y