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Dissolved oxygen drives the environmental behavior of heavy metals in coastal sediments

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Abstract

In this study, the impacts of dissolved oxygen (DO) on dynamics concentrations of heavy metals (Cu, Cd, Cr, and Pb) from estuary sediments were investigated in a 49-day laboratory simulation. The exchange flux method, Bureau Communautaire de Référence (BCR) sequential extraction procedure, and risk assessment code (RAC) were used to analyze the behavior of heavy metals. The results indicated that oxic environments promoted the concentrations of Cu and Cd in overlying water compared to the anoxic environments. The exchange fluxes showed that the diffusion of Cu, Cd, Cr, and Pb from sediments was the predominant process in the first 9 days, and a metastable equilibrium state was gradually reached in the later period under anoxic conditions. However, oxic conditions extended the time required to reach metastable equilibrium for Cu over the sediment–water (overlying water) interface (SWI). Although the reducible fractions of Cu, Cd, and Pb accounted for a large proportion of their total levels, the release ability of Cu, Cd, and Pb was limited by the high content of sulfide under anoxic conditions. The RAC values indicated that anoxic environments increased the proportion of acid-soluble fraction. The information obtained from this study highlights the potential risk for re-release of heavy metal from sediments under different redox conditions.

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Data availability

The datasets used during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDA23050203). Additional support was provided by the Key Project of Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. ZR2020KE048) and the Key Research and Development Program of Shandong Province (Grant No. 2019GSF109002).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Coastal Zone Environmental Processes, Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yantai, China

    Xiaozhu Liu, Yanqing Sheng, Qunqun Liu & Ming Jiang

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Xiaozhu Liu, Qunqun Liu & Ming Jiang

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  1. Xiaozhu Liu
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  2. Yanqing Sheng
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Correspondence to Yanqing Sheng.

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Liu, X., Sheng, Y., Liu, Q. et al. Dissolved oxygen drives the environmental behavior of heavy metals in coastal sediments. Environ Monit Assess 194, 297 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-09975-w

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