Mercury adsorption in the Mississippi River deltaic plain freshwater marsh soil of Louisiana Gulf coastal wetlands.

Mercury adsorption characteristics of Mississippi River deltaic plain (MRDP) freshwater marsh soil in the Louisiana Gulf coast were evaluated under various conditions. Mercury adsorption was well described by pseudo-second order and Langmuir isotherm models with maximum adsorption capacity of 39.8 mg g-1. Additional fitting of intraparticle model showed that mercury in the MRDP freshwater marsh soil was controlled by both external surface adsorption and intraparticle diffusion. The partition of adsorbed mercury (mg g-1) revealed that mercury was primarily adsorbed into organic-bond fraction (12.09) and soluble/exchangeable fraction (10.85), which accounted for 63.5% of the total adsorption, followed by manganese oxide-bound (7.50), easily mobilizable carbonate-bound (4.53), amorphous iron oxide-bound (0.55), crystalline Fe oxide-bound (0.41), and residual fraction (0.16). Mercury adsorption capacity was generally elevated along with increasing solution pH even though dominant species of mercury were non-ionic HgCl2, HgClOH and Hg(OH)2 at between pH 3 and 9. In addition, increasing background NaCl concentration and the presence of humic acid decreased mercury adsorption, whereas the presence of phosphate, sulfate and nitrate enhanced mercury adsorption. Mercury adsorption in the MRDP freshwater marsh soil was reduced by the presence of Pb, Cu, Cd and Zn with Pb showing the greatest competitive adsorption. Overall the adsorption capacity of mercury in the MRDP freshwater marsh soil was found to be significantly influenced by potential environmental changes, and such factors should be considered in order to manage the risks associated with mercury in this MRDP wetland for responding to future climate change scenarios.