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Co-transport behavior of ammonium and colloids in saturated porous media under different hydrochemical conditions

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Abstract

To investigate co-transport behavior of ammonium and colloids in saturated porous media under different hydrochemical conditions, NH4+ was selected as the target contaminant, and silicon and humic acid (HA) were selected as typical organic and inorganic colloids in groundwater. Column experiments were then conducted to investigate the transport of NH4+ colloids under various hydrochemical conditions. The results showed that because of the different properties of colloidal silicon and HA after combining with NH4+, the co-transport mechanism became significantly different. During transport by the NH4+–colloid system, colloidal silicon occupied the adsorption sites on the medium surface to promote the transport of NH4+, while humic acid (HA) increased the number of adsorption sites of the medium to hinder the transport of NH4+. The co-transport of NH4+ and colloids is closely related to hydrochemical conditions. In the presence of HA, competitive adsorption and morphological changes of HA caused NH4+ to be more likely to be transported at a higher ionic strength (IS = 0.05 m, CaCl2) and alkalinity (pH = 9.3). In the presence of colloidal silicon, blocking action caused the facilitated transport to be dependent on higher ionic strength and acidity (pH = 4.5), causing the recovery of NH4+ to improve by 7.99%, 222.25% (stage 1), and 8.63%, respectively. Moreover, transport increases with the colloidal silicon concentrations of 20 mg/L then declines at 40 mg/L, demonstrating that increased concentrations will lead to blocking and particle aggregation, resulting in delayed release in the leaching stage.

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Acknowledgments

The authors appreciate the editors and reviewers for providing valuable advice that greatly improved our paper.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41877175) and the 111 Project [B16020].

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Correspondence to Wenjing Zhang.

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Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

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Highlights

1. Colloidal silicon facilitated NH4+ transport and HA inhibited NH4+ transport.

2. The co-transport behavior between NH4+ and colloid is subject to different hydrochemical conditions.

3. Main principles include different bonding forms, colloid forms, and charges.

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Li, J., Zhang, W., Qin, Y. et al. Co-transport behavior of ammonium and colloids in saturated porous media under different hydrochemical conditions. Environ Sci Pollut Res 27, 15068–15082 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-07835-z

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