Pesticide adsorption by granular activated carbon adsorbers. 2. Effects of pesticide and natural organic matter characteristics on pesticide breakthrough curves.

The principal objective of this study was to elucidate mechanisms by which NOM affects the adsorption of a nonpolar (simazine) and a polar (asulam) herbicide on activated carbon. Experiments were carried out in microcolumns that were continuously fed solutions containing NOM with different molecular weight (MW) distributions and intermittently solutions containing the same NOM plus simazine or asulam. The MW distributions of a groundwater NOM were altered by coagulation and ultrafiltration, which resulted in the preferential removal of high-MW, UV260-absorbing NOM. At a given NOM loading, the simazine removal efficiency was higher in the column that was preloaded with raw groundwater than in columns receiving coagulated or ultrafiltered water. In contrast, the asulam removal efficiency was similar for all three NOM solutions at a given NOM loading. Therefore, the results suggested that low-MW, UV260-absorbing NOM molecules competed directly with strongly adsorbing pesticides, such as simazine, for adsorption sites. For more weakly adsorbing pesticides, such as asulam, direct competition for adsorption sites originated not only from the strongly adsorbing, low-MW NOM, but also from more weakly adsorbing, higher-MW NOM. Consequently, the competing NOM fraction increases as the adsorbability of the SOC decreases, a result that was confirmed by adsorption data for additional pesticides of similar size. However, a smaller pesticide competed more effectively for adsorption sites than a larger pesticide of similar polarity, suggesting that the concentration of competing NOM decreases as the MW of the SOC decreases.