Evaluation of methods to obtain geosorbent fractions enriched in carbonaceous materials that affect hydrophobic organic chemical sorption

To better understand sorption, separation methods are needed to enrich soils and sediments in one or more types of carbonaceous materials (CM), especially in fine grain materials where physical separation is not possible. We evaluated a series of chemical and thermal treatment methods by applying them to four different CMs prepared in our laboratory: a humic acid (HA), a char, a soot, and a heat-treated soot (HN-soot). Before and after each treatment step, CM properties were evaluated including aqueous phase sorption with trichloroethene (TCE). Results indicate that treatment with hydrofluoric (HF) and hydrochloric acid (HCI) to remove silicate minerals, and with trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) to remove easily hydrolyzable organic matter, has relatively little effect on the humic acid mass (< 19% change) and TCE sorption to this material. Subsequent treatment with NaOH to extract fulvic and humic acids results in almost complete removal of the humic acid mass (> 92%) and has little to no effect on the masses of the char and two soots (< 8% change) and TCE sorption to these materials. Treatment with acid dichromate to remove kerogen and humin also has little effect on masses of the char and soots (< 16% change), but TCE sorption to these materials is significantly altered (by > 10x in some cases), and there is strong evidence of surface oxidation based on X-ray photoelectron and diffuse reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy results. The last step, thermal treatment, which targets char removal, also destroys > 96% of the soots pretreated with acid dichromate. However, when thermal treatment is applied to the original soots, < 32% of these materials are destroyed. Thermal oxidation also affects sorption to one of the soots (by similar to 2x at low concentration), and surface oxidation is evident. These results suggest that treatment with HCl, HCl/HF, TFA, and NaOH can be applied to soils and sediments to obtain CM enrichment fractions for sorption evaluation, but that acid dichromate and heat treatment may not be appropriate for these purposes.