Effect of pH on transport of Pb^(2+),Mn^(2+),Zn^(2+) and Ni^(2+) through lateritic soil: Column experiments and transport modeling

This study investigated the effects of pH on the transport of Pb 2＋ , Mn 2＋ , Zn 2＋ and Ni 2＋ through lateritic soil columns. Model results by fitting the symmetric breakthrough curves （BTCs） of bromide （Br ） with CXTFIT model suggested that physical non-equilibrium processes were absent in the columns. The heavy metal BTCs were, however, asymmetrical and exhibited a tailing phenomenon, indicating the presence of chemical non-equilibrium processes in the columns. The retardation factors of Pb 2＋ were the largest of the four metal ions at both pH 4.0 （33.3） and pH 5.0 （35.4）. The use of Langmuir isotherm parameters from batch studies with HYDRUS-1D did not predict the BTCs well. Rather the two-site model （TSM） described the heavy metal BTCs better than the equilibrium linear/nonlinear Langmuir model. The fraction of instantaneous sorption sites （ f ） of all four metal ions on the lateritic soil was consistently about 30%–44% of the total sorption sites.