Abstract
River filtration system is a natural purification process to remove the pollutants in river water and make use of surface water. In this study, a series of experiments were set up with soil column test and static adsorption experiments to simulate the environmental behaviors of BTEX in the river filtration system. It was found that the environmental behaviors of BTEX in the river filtration system included adsorption and microbial degradation. Among the four components of BTEX used in the experiments, the removal rate of xylene was the highest, ethyl-benzene was second, toluene was third, and that of benzene was the lowest. The stability of the structure of benzene was the major contributor for the relatively lower degradation efficiency, and the low removal rate of toluene was due to the impact of adsorption on degradation. By comparison of the results of soil column test and static adsorption experiments, it was found that the soil–water partition coefficient K d of each component of BTEX was higher, the degradation ratio was lower. Compared with the previous study, the results of this experiment showed that when the initial concentration of the each component of BTEX reached 80 mg/L, the mixed pollution of BTEX could be removed by the river filtration system efficiently, and the average removal rate could be over 65 %. As a natural purification, river filtration system could efficiently remove the BTEX mixed pollution in a quite high concentration and protect the ground water from being contaminated. However, its purification efficiency was limited in a certain time range and concentration. It was shown in the later stage of the leaching experiment that the exudation concentration of BTEX increased, at the same time both the concentrations of the two electron acceptors increased to about the initial concentration and kept stable state until the end of the experiment, which revealed that due to accumulation of the concentration of BTEX in the soil column, the microbial activity was inhibited and then the denitrification and sulfate reduction terminated. When the adsorption saturation was achieved and microbial activity was inhibited, BTEX contamination would penetrate through the unsaturated zone and threaten the security of the ground water.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alvarez PJ, Vogel TM (1991) Substrate interaction of benzene, toluene and p-xylene during microbial degradation by pire cultures and mixed culture aquifer slurries. Appl Environ Microbiol 57(10):2981–2985
Alvarez PJ, Vogel TM (1995) Degradation of BTEX and their Aerobic Metabolites by indigenous microorganisms under nitrate reducing conditions. Water Sci Technol 31:15–28
Ball WP, Roberts PV (1991) Long-term sorption of halogenated organic chemicals by aquifer material 2 intra-particle diffusion. Env Sci Technol 25:1237–1249
Bianchi AP, Varney MS (1998) Volatile organic compounds in the surface waters of a British estuary. part 2. Fate processes. Water Res 32(2):371–379
Bornick H, Eppinger P, Grischek T et al (2001) Simulation of biological degradation of aromatic amines in riverbed sediments. Water Res 35:619–624
Busoon S, Patrick B, Wonho Y (2003) Volatile organic compound concentrations in residential indoor and outdoor and its persona exposure in Korea. Env Int 2(1):79–85
Dillon PJ, Miller M, Fallowfield H et al (2002) The potential of river bank filtration for drinking water supplies in relation to microsystin removal in brackish aquifers. J Hydrol 266:209–221
Dou JF, Liu X (2006) Biodegradation of benzene series compounds under nitrate reducing conditions. Env Sci 9:1846–1852
Dou JF, Liu X, Hu ZF et al (2008a) Anaerobic BTEX biodegradation linked to nitrate and sulfate reduction. J Hazard Mater 151:720–729
Dou JF, Liu X, Hu ZF (2008b) Substrate interactions during anaerobic biodegradation of btex by the mixed cultures under nitrate reducing conditions. J Hazard Mater 158:264–272
Douglas GS, Owens EH, Hardenstine J et al (2002) The OSSA II pipeline oil spill: the character and weathering of the spilled oil. Spill Sci Tech Bull 7(324):135–148
Hawthorne SB, Miller DJ (2003) Evidence for very tight sequestration of BTEX compounds in manufactured gas plant soils based on selective supercritical fluid extraction and soil-water partitioning. Environ Sci Technol 37:3587–3594
Jones WL, Dockery JD, Vogrl CR et al (1993) Diffusion and reaction within porous packing media: aphenpmeno logical model. Biotechnol Bioeng 41:947–956
Kuehn W, Mueller U (2000) Riverbank filtration an overview. J Am Water Works Assoc 92(12):60–69
Lee SC, Chiu MY, Ho KF et al (2002) Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in urban atmosphere of Hong Kong. Chemosphere 48(3):375–382
Lehninger AL (1975) Biochemistry, 2nd edn. Worth Publishers Inc, New York
Li Y, Li B (2007) Effects of factors on volatilization of petroleum contaminants. Ecology Env 2:327–331
Li Z, Chen X, Hao S et al (2007) Lab-Scale experiment of influence on shallow groudwater by BTEX in polluted River. J Earth Sci Env 1:70–74
Liu L, Cui G (2000) Effect of sorption on organic biodegradation in soil/water system. Advances Water Sci 2000(4):401–407
Lorenzen G, Sprenger C, Taute T et al (2010) Assessment of the potential for bank filtration in a water-stressed megacity (Delhi, India). Environ Earth Sci 61(7):1419–1434
Okubo K, Khan MSA, Hassan MQ (2010) Hydrological processes of adsorption, sedimentation, and infiltration into the lake bed during the 2004 urban flood in Dhaka city Bangladesh. Env Earth Sci 60(1):95–106
Osenbruck K, Wohling T, Lemke D et al (2013) Assessing hyporheic exchange and associated travel times by hydraulic, chemical, and isotopic monitoring at the Steinlach test site Germany. Env Earth Sci 69(2):359–372
Ray C, Grischek T, Schubert J et al (2002a) A perspective of riverbank filtration. J Am Water Works Assoc 94(4):149–160
Ray C, Soong TW, Lian YQ et al (2002b) Effect of flood-induced chemical load on filtrate quality at bank filtration sites. J Hydrol 266:235–258
Schwarzenbach RP, Gschwend PM, Imboden DM (2002) Environmental Organic Chemistry. John Wiley & Sons Inc, Hoboken
Shen X, Sun J, Ma Z et al (2005) Effect of surfactant on the evaporation of BTEX from static water. Env Sci 1:122–126
Van der Hoek JP. Bertelkamp C, Verliefde ARD., Singhal NS.(2013). Drinking water treatment technologies in Europe: state of the art–challenges–research needs. Journal of Water Supply: Research and Technology—AQUA. doi:10.2166/aqua.2013.007
Verstraeten IM (2002) Changes in concentrations of triazine and acetamide herbicides by bank filtration, ozonation, and chlorination in public water supply. J Hydrol 266:190–208
Walter WJ, Huang WL (1996) A distributed reactivity model for sorption by soils and sediments. 4. intra-particle heterogeneity and phase-distribution relationships under non-equilibrium conditions. environmental. Sci. Technol. 30(3):881–888
Wang C, Wang PF, Hu X (2007) Removal of CODcr and nitrogen in severely polluted river water by bank filtration. Environ Technol 28(6):649–657
Wett B, Jarosch H, Ingerle K (2002) Flood induced infiltration affecting a bank filtrate well at the river Enns, Austria. J Hydrol 266:222–234
Wu YG, Hui L, Wang H et al (2007) Effectiveness of riverbank filtration for removal of nitrogen from heavily polluted rivers: a case study of Kuihe River, Xuzhou, Jiangsu. China Environ Geol 52(1):19–25
Wu YG, Yin DZ, Li YF (2008) Aniline biodegradation in riverbed sediments with low content of organic carbon under denitrification conditions. Res J Chem Env 12(1):51–57
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Funds of China for Natural Science (Grant No. 40772165).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ma, Y., Li, Z. Experiment simulation study on removal mechanism of BTEX in using river filtration system. Environ Earth Sci 72, 4511–4520 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-014-3351-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-014-3351-1