Kinetics of Nitrate Reduction by Iron at Near Neutral pH
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 128, Issue 7
Abstract
Although considerable research has been conducted on nitrate reduction by zerovalent iron (ZVI), the process kinetics at near neutral pH has not been studied thoroughly. In this study, a kinetic model with a double-Langmuir-adsorption formulation was developed to represent site saturation effects of aqueous and on nitrate reduction in a ZVI system at near neutral pH. Both an analytical solution and a numerical solution of the proposed model were developed. The kinetic parameters were evaluated based on batch experiments with two types of ZVI. Sensitivity analysis indicates that it is rather difficult and unreliable to estimate the parameters of the proposed multivariable nonlinear kinetic model from a single test curve. A better strategy is to obtain reliable parameters by designing specific experiments to target one parameter each time. The results indicate that, although the values of the kinetic parameters might change with different types of iron powder, the kinetic model can fit the experimental data very well, and therefore is consistent with the proposed mechanism.
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Copyright © 2002 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: May 14, 2001
Accepted: Sep 5, 2001
Published online: Jun 14, 2002
Published in print: Jul 2002
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