Sorption of copper, zinc and nickel by selected soils

Abstract

The objective of this study was to interprete the interaction of copper, zinc and nickel with soils of varing composition. Soils were taken from different regions. Soil 1 was from Marmara region, soil 2 and soil 3 were from Mediterranean region. The soil samples were artificially polluted by copper, zinc and nickel with different concentrations and V/m ratios (where V stands for the solution volume added on the soil and m for the weight of soil taken) for 48 hours. The time 48 hours was determined as the equilibrium time of the interaction between metal ions and soils. The soils artificially contaminated with varying concentrations were then subjected to shaking and centrifuging. The amount of remaining copper, zinc and nickel in solution were determined by Atomic Absorption Spectrometry. The adsorption-desorption behavior of copper, zinc and nickel were evaluated in mono and competitive multi metal systems with Freundlich isotherm equation; and related sorption constants were calculated from the isotherms. Thus, it was observed that in mono metal system more copper was adsorbed and desorbed than other metals on the soil with higher pH and CEC, namely soil1. In multi metal system, Ni was the metal which adsorbeddesorbed the most on soils 2 and 3. Adsorptiondesorption intensity was calculated for multimetal systems. The findings derived from isotherms were in consistence with the adsorptiondesorption intensity results.