Adsorption characteristics of construction waste for heavy metals from urban stormwater runoff

Stormwater runoff has become an important source of surface water pollution. Bioretention, a low impact development measure in urban stormwater management, has been proven to be effective in the removal of pollutants from stormwater runoff, with appropriate bioretention media. In this study, construction wastes were selected as bioretention media to remove heavy metals from stormwater runoff. Static and dynamic adsorption batch experiments were carried out to investigate the adsorption of heavy metals in simulated stormwater runoff system with construction wastes in different particle sizes. The experimental results show that the pseudo-second-order kinetic model characterizes the adsorption process and the adsorption equilibrium data are well described by Freundlich isotherm model. The construction wastes used can remove heavy metals from stormwater runoff effectively, with their average removal rates all more than 90%. The particle size of construction wastes greatly influences the equilibrium time, rate and adsorption capacity for heavy metals.

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