Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

The Effects of Naturally Occurring Biofilms in Rapid Small Scale Column Testing of Sorbents for the Removal of Copper, Zinc, Nutrients, and Organic Carbon form Stormwater

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/5425kj47g

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  • This project determined how the presence of environmental biofilms on sand, granular activated carbon and biochar affected the sorption capacity and desorption quantity of copper, zinc, nutrients and organic carbon from stormwater. These contaminants have harmful and toxic environmental impacts on aquatic life, can lead to eutrophication of surface waters, and are not easily removed by bioretention basins. Thus, the use of sorbents after a bioretention basin has the potential to remove contaminants that remain in the effluent. However, questions remain around biofouling of the sorbents. The sorption and desorption of dissolved copper, zinc, nitrate, phosphate, and organic carbon were monitored in sterile rapid small-scale columns (RSSCs) and RSSCs containing environmental biofilms enriched from soil collected at the OSU-Benton County Green Stormwater Infrastructure Research (OGSIR) facility. Triplicate columns contained either biochar/sand, granular activated carbon/sand, or sand only (as a negative control). Rapid small-scale column testing (RSSCT) was performed on Calgon Filtrasorb 400 granular activated carbon (GAC) and Douglas fir derived StormwaterBiochar™. The sand only RSSCT experiments quantified the sorption capacity of the stormwater biofilm communities alone. These communities removed approximately 5% of the influent zinc and 10% of the influent copper. This indicated that the stormwater microbial community preferentially sorbs copper over zinc. The formation of denser more active biofilms on GAC compared to biochar caused no change in copper sorption capacity but inhibited the zinc adsorption capacity of GAC, decreasing it by 10 µg/cm3 of GAC. The less dense biofilm formation on biochar improved biochar copper sorption capacity by 10 µg/cm3 of biochar and improved biochar zinc sorption capacity by 40 µg/cm3 of biochar. Biofilms did not significantly affect dissolved phosphate or nitrate removals in the column studies. The presence of biofilms and organic loading during biofilm growth did cause GAC, the only sorbent seen to remove organic carbon initially to lose the capacity for organic carbon removal as approximated by UV-254 fluorescent DOC measurements.
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  • Intellectual Property (patent, etc.)
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  • 2021-06-10 to 2022-01-11

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