ABSTRACT
In this work, column experiments were applied to investigate the transport of four kinds of microplastics (MPs) under a series of ionic strength (IS) conditions. Under 0.1 mM IS, PMMA MPs showed the highest mobility, as well as the PET MPs showed the lowest mobility. With the IS increased, the transport of all kinds of MPs in porous media was generally reduced to the minimum. The transport reducing efficiency of PMMA MPs and PET MPs was lower than that of the PVC MPs and PP MPs. It was found that both the hydro-chemical conditions and basic properties showed combined effect on MPs transport in porous media. The DLVO results were well used to describe the deposition of MPs onto sand surface and excavate the transport behaviors of MPs. The one-site kinetic deposition model was successfully conducted to fit the observed breakthrough curves. Findings from this study elucidated the key factors controlling the MPs transport in porous media, contributing to the prediction and assessment of the environmental risks of MPs.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Soil Environmental Management and Pollution Control (SEMPC2023007), the Special Fund of State Environmental Protection Engineering Center for Urban Soil Contamination Control and Remediation (USCR-202205), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42277001).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).