The mechanism of flow turbulence, sediment supply conditions, and sediment transport patterns that affect the adsorption of cadmium ions onto sediment particles in natural waters are experimentally simulated and studied both in batch reactors and in a turbulence simulation tank. By changing the agitation conditions, the sediment transport in batch reactors can be categorized into bottom sediment-dominated sediment and suspended sediment-dominated sediment. It is found that the adsorption rate of bottom sediment is much less than that of suspended sediment, but the sediment transport pattern does not affect the final （equilibrium） concentration of dissolved cadmium. This result indicates that the parameters of an adsorption isotherm are the same regardless of the sediment transport pattern. In the turbulence simulation tank, the turbulence is generated by harmonic grid-stirred motions, and the turbulence intensity is quantified in terms of eddy diffusivity, which is equal to 9.84F （F is the harmonic vibration frequency） and is comparable to natural surface water conditions. When the turbulence intensity of flow is low and sediment particles stay as bottom sediment, the adsorption rate is significantly low, and the adsorption quantity compared with that of suspended sediment is negligible in the 6 h duration of the experiment. This result greatly favors the simplification of the numerical modeling of heavy metal pollutant transformation in natural rivers. When the turbulence intensity is high but bottom sediment persists, the rate and extent of descent of the dissolved cadmium concentration in the tank noticeably increase, and the time that is required to reach adsorption equilibrium also increases considerably due to the continuous exchange that occurs between the suspended sediment and the bottom sediment. A comparison of the results of the experiments in the batch reactor and those in the turbulence simulation tank reveals that the adsorption ability of the sediment, and in particular the adsorption rate
Based on the previous work on the transport-transformation of heavy metal pollutants in fluvial rivers, this paper presented the formulation of a two-dimensional model to describe heavy metal transport-transformation in fluvial rivers by considering basic principles of environmental chemistry, hydraulics, mechanics of sediment transport and recent developments along with three very simplified test cases. The model consists of water flow governing equations, sediment transport governing equations, transport-transformation equation of heavy metal pollutants, and convection-diffusion equations of adsorption-desorption kinetics of particulate heavy metal concentrations on suspended load, bed load and bed sediment. The heavy metal transport-transformation equation is basically a mass balance equation, which demonstrates how sediment transport affects transport-transformation of heavy metals in fluvial rivers. The convection-diffusion equations of adsorption-desorption kinetics of heavy metals, being an extension of batch reactor experimental results and a major advancement of the previous work, take both physical transport, i.e. convection and diffusion and chemical reactions, i.e. adsorption-desorption into account. Effects of sediment transport on heavy metal transport-transformation were clarified through three examples. Specifically, the transport-transformation of heavy metals in a steady, uniform and equilibrium sediment-laden flow was calculated by applying this model, and results were shown to be rational. Both theoretical analysis and numerical simulation indicated that the transport-transformation of heavy metals in sediment-laden flows with clay-enriched riverbed possesses not only the generality of common tracer pollutants, but also characteristics of transport-transformation induced by sediment motion. Future work will be conducted to present validation/application of the model with available data.
HUANG SuiLiang Numerical Simulation Group for Water Environment, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Environmental Remediation and Pollution Control, Key Laboratory of Pollution Processes and Environmental Criteria of the Ministry of Education
The effects of chemical spills on aquatic nontarget organisms were evaluated in this study.Based on a review of three types of current eco-toxicological models of chemicals,i.e.,ACQUATOX model of the US-EPA,Hudson River Model of PCBs,and critical body residual(CBR)model and dynamic energy budget(DEBtox)model,this paper presents an uncoupled numerical ecotoxicological model.The transport and transformation of spilled chemicals were simulated by a chemical transport model(including flow and sediment transport),and the mortalities of an organism caused by the chemicals were simulated by the extended threshold damage model,separately.Due to extreme scarcity of data,this model was applied to two hypothetical cases of chemical spills happening upstream of a lake.Theoretical analysis and simulated results indicated that this model is capable of reasonably predicting the acute effects of chemical spills on aquatic ecosystems or organism killings.
