Chemical equilibrium modeling of copper precipitation in a hyper-concentrated solid-liquid system

Abstract

Rapid progress has been made recently in the understanding of heavy metal sorption and speciation on sediment and soils. One aspect that was overlooked in the previous studies was the process of pollutant transformation and transportation in hyper-concentrated solid-liquid systems. In this paper, batch experiments on copper sorption in association with loess at high sediment concentrations were conducted. However, some reaction mechanisms were difficult to determine experimentally due to the limitations of speciation extraction methods. In an additional study, the MINTEQA2 chemical equilibrium model was used to calculate the speciation and precipitation of copper sorption by loess to give quantitative predictions and detailed information about the reaction process. The experiments and the modeling simulation were made under the same sorption conditions, with sediment concentrations ranging from 50 to 200 kg/m³ and adsorbates of CuSO₄ and Cu(NO₃)₂, in order to compare their results. The modeling results clearly supported the experimental results, fully explained the mechanisms of the effects of chemical form and sediment concentration on the copper sorption, and strengthened the dominant role of carbonates among the main components of loess in the process of copper sorption.