Το work with title Natural restoration of heavy metal contaminated soils: The role of interfacial processes by Nikolaidis Nikolaos is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Bibliographic Citation
N.P. Nikolaidis, L. A. Hellerich. (2001,June).. Natural restoration of heavy metal
contaminated soils: The role of interfacial processes. Ground Water Quality 2001
Conference Proceedings. [Online]. Available: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nikolaos_Nikolaidis2/publication/266480478_Natural_restoration_of_heavy_metal_contaminated_soils_the_role_of_interfacial_processes/links/54e9b4890cf2f7aa4d53b42a.pdf
Macroscale (transport and redox fronts) and microscale (masstransfer, surface adsorption, precipitation and dissolution reactions) processesinfluence the natural restoration time of heavy metal contaminated soils. Theobjective of this work was to estimate the characteristic times of the variousmacroscale and microscale processes that occur in heavy metal contaminatedsites and evaluate the recovery times of natural restoration. A mathematicalmodel developed to describe the fate, speciation and transport of heavy metalsin porous media was used to simulate the leaching of heavy metals in columnstudies. The characteristic times of all the processes affecting the fate andtransport of heavy metals were determined. The leaching of heavy metalsattached to intra-granular sites was determined to be the slow mass transferprocess that controls the mobility of heavy metals in contaminated soils. Theconcentration of metals (such as cadmium) at residual levels exceeded theregulatory standards. Natural restoration of heavy metal contaminated soils toregulatory levels may only be achieved over the span of generations.