Assessment of the pollution potential of mercury contaminated biosolids
Cristina Lomonte A B F , Johannes Fritsche C , Emilia Bramanti D , Augustine Doronila A B , David Gregory E , Alan J. M. Baker B and Spas D. Kolev AA School of Chemistry, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Vic. 3010, Australia.
B School of Botany, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Vic. 3010, Australia.
C Institute of Environmental Geosciences, University of Basel, Bernoullistrasse 32, CH-4056 Basel, Switzerland.
D Laboratory of Instrumental Analytical Chemistry, Italian National Research Council-Istituto per i Processi Chimico-Fisici, Via G. Moruzzi 1, I-56124 Pisa, Italy.
E Research & Technology Division, Melbourne Water Corporation, 100 Wellington Parade, East Melbourne, Vic. 3001, Australia.
F Corresponding author. Email: c.lomonte@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au
Environmental Chemistry 7(2) 146-152 https://doi.org/10.1071/EN09105
Submitted: 21 August 2009 Accepted: 22 December 2009 Published: 22 April 2010
Environmental context. The re-use of biosolids (sewage sludge) is becoming increasingly popular especially for land applications as soil improvers, fertilisers and composts. However, some biosolids are contaminated with toxic heavy metals and mercury is arguably of the highest environmental and public health concern. Studies on mobility, availability and emissions of mercury from biosolids were carried out to assess the biosolids potential for contamination of the environment and to evaluate applicable techniques for a future remediation.
Abstract. Biosolids from Melbourne Water’s Western Treatment Plant (WTP) in Australia contain elevated levels of mercury. Consequently, monitoring programs are crucial in order to assess localised impacts to the environment and on humans immediately surrounding the boundaries of the WTP. Dry biosolids were surveyed for Hg, other heavy metals, cations, soluble anions, sulfur and phosphorus. Mercury concentrations were found to vary between 3.5 and 8.4 mg kg–1 Hg, indicating that biosolids from some locations were above the safety level (5 mg kg–1 Hg) for land applications. High concentrations of soluble anions and cations revealed elevated salinity levels. The biosolids with the highest Hg concentration were further studied to assess their potential for Hg remediation. The results obtained by a sequential extraction procedure showed that 59.01% of the total mercury was complexed with organic ligands. In addition, the influence of air temperature, water content and irradiation on the emission of gaseous elemental mercury from biosolids was studied. Light exposure and water addition were the main factors affecting this emission with flux values up to 132 ng m–2 h–1.
Additional keywords: sequential extraction, total gaseous mercury flux.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Melbourne Water for funding this research and to The University of Melbourne for scholarship for Cristina Lomonte.
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