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Biochar- and phosphate-induced immobilization of heavy metals in contaminated soil and water: implication on simultaneous remediation of contaminated soil and groundwater

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Abstract

Long-term wastewater irrigation or solid waste disposal has resulted in the heavy metal contamination in both soil and groundwater. It is often separately implemented for remediation of contaminated soil or groundwater at a specific site. The main objective of this study was to demonstrate the hypothesis of simultaneous remediation of both heavy metal contaminated soil and groundwater by integrating the chemical immobilization and pump-and-treat methods. To accomplish the objective, three experiments were conducted, i.e., an incubation experiment was first conducted to determine how dairy-manure-derived biochar and phosphate rock tailing induced immobilization of Cd in the Cd-contaminated soils; second, a batch sorption experiment was carried out to determine whether the pre-amended contaminated soil still had the ability to retain Pb, Zn and Cd from aqueous solution. BCR sequential extraction as well as XRD and SEM analysis were conducted to explore the possible retention mechanism; and last, a laboratory-scale model test was undertaken by leaching the Pb, Zn, and Cd contaminated groundwater through the pre-amended contaminated soils to demonstrate how the heavy metals in both contaminated soil and groundwater were simultaneously retained and immobilized. The incubation experiment showed that the phosphate biochar were effective in immobilizing soil Cd with Cd concentration in TCLP (toxicity characteristics leaching procedure) extract reduced by 19.6 % and 13.7 %, respectively. The batch sorption experiment revealed that the pre-amended soil still had ability to retain Pb, Zn, and Cd from aqueous solution. The phosphate-induced metal retention was mainly due to the metal–phosphate precipitation, while both sorption and precipitation were responsible for the metal stabilization in the biochar amendment. The laboratory-scale test demonstrated that the soil amended with phosphate removed groundwater Pb, Zn, and Cd by 96.4 %, 44.6 %, and 49.2 %, respectively, and the soil amended with biochar removed groundwater Pb, Zn, and Cd by 97.4 %, 53.4 %, and 54.5 %, respectively. Meanwhile, the metals from both groundwater and soil itself were immobilized with the amendments, with the leachability of the three metals in the CaCl2 and TCLP extracts being reduced by up to 98.1 % and 62.7 %, respectively. Our results indicate that the integrated chemical immobilization and pump-and-treat method developed in this study provides a novel way for simultaneous remediation of both metal-contaminated soil and groundwater.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21077072, 21107070, 21377081), Shanghai Pujiang Talent Project (No. 11PJ1404600), and Suzhou Science and Technology Support Program (No. SS201230).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Yuan Liang, Xinde Cao & Ling Zhao

  2. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou, 215009, China

    Yuan Liang

  3. Department Ecosystems y Medio Ambiente, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Eduardo Arellano

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  1. Yuan Liang
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  2. Xinde Cao
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  3. Ling Zhao
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  4. Eduardo Arellano
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Correspondence to Xinde Cao.

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Responsible editor: Zhihong Xu

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Liang, Y., Cao, X., Zhao, L. et al. Biochar- and phosphate-induced immobilization of heavy metals in contaminated soil and water: implication on simultaneous remediation of contaminated soil and groundwater. Environ Sci Pollut Res 21, 4665–4674 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-013-2423-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-013-2423-1

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