Synthetic stormwater for laboratory testing of filter materials

Synthetic stormwater was tested to determine the ageing effects on dissolved metal concentrations and used in a column experiment to determine efficiency of four different filter materials (milkweed, bark, peat, polypropylene) in removing total and dissolved metals. Synthetic stormwater was created by adding metal salts, oil and collected stormwater sediment to tap water. Two ageing experiments were performed to determine the change of synthetic stormwater quality over time. One experiment lasted for 11 days and another focused on rapid concentration changes one day after preparation. The one-day ageing experiment showed rapid decrease in dissolved concentration of certain metals, specifically Cu. To consider this change, correction coefficients for each metal were developed and used to estimate the average dissolved metal concentration in the synthetic stormwater during the experiment to determine filter treatment efficiency. During the 11-day experiment on metal concentrations, no noticeable quality changes were observed for at least six days after the preparation of synthetic stormwater. Furthermore, a column experiment was run with duplicate filter columns. Inflow and outflow samples were analysed for total and dissolved metals, turbidity, particle size distribution, and pH. High removal of total metal concentrations was noticed in all tested filter media (58-94%). Dissolved metal concentration removal varied among different filter media. In general, columns with bark and peat media were able to treat dissolved metals better than polypropylene and milkweed. The level of treatment of dissolved metals between the different filter media columns were bark > peat > milkweed > polypropylene.