Concentration-dependent kinetics of pollutant desorption from soils

Sorption-desorption kinetics play a major role in transport and bioavailability of pollutants in soils. Contaminant concentration is a potentially important factor controlling kinetics. A previous paper dealt with the effect of solute concentration on fractional uptake rates of phenanthrene and pyrene from a finite aqueous source. In this study we determined the effect of initial phenanthrene sorbed concentration (q(0)) on the fractional mass desorption rates from each of six soils to a zero-concentration solution, approximated by including a polymer adsorbent (Tenax) as a third-phase sink. The soils were preequilibrated with phenanthrene for 180 d. Consistent with theory, the fractional desorption rates determined by empirical curve fitting increased with q(0) provided the isotherm was nonlinear. After 500 to 600 d of desorption at the steepest possible concentration gradient, all soils retained a highly resistant fraction, which ranged from 4 to 31% of q(0), except for one soil at a high q(0). The highly resistant fraction decreased with increasing q(0), for nonlinear isotherm cases, but increased with q(0) for linear or nearly linear isotherm cases. Application of a nonlinear diffusion model, the dual-mode diffusion model (DMDM), to the nonresistant fraction gave reasonably good fits. The DMDM attributes the increase with concentration of the apparent diffusivity to a decrease in the proportion of sorbate occupying immobile sites (holes) in soil organic matter. The concentration-dependent term in the expression for the apparent diffusivity correlated with either of two indices that reflect the linearity of the sorption isotherm. Bunker C oil present in one soil acted as a partition domain. The findings of this study are consistent with heterogeneous models of soil organic matter, and indicate that concentration effects should be taken into account whenever desorption rate is important.