Solubility enhancement of seven metal contaminants using carboxymethyl-β-cyclodextrin (CMCD)

Carboxymethyl-β-cyclodextrin (CMCD) has been suggested as a complexing agent for remediation of sites co-contaminated with metals and organic pollutants. As part of an attempt to construct a geochemical complexation model for metal-CMCD interactions, conditional formation constants for the complexes between CMCD and 7 metal ions (Ba, Ca, Cd, Ni, Pb, Sr, and Zn) are estimated from experimental data. Stable metal concentrations were reached after approximately 1 day and estimated logarithmic conditional formation constants range from − 3.2 to − 5.1 with confidence intervals within ± 0.08 log units. Experiments performed at 10 °C and 25 °C show that temperature affects the solubility of the metal salts but the strength of CMCD-metal complexes are not affected by this temperature variation. The conditional stability constants and complexation model presented in this work can be used to screen CMCD as a potential remediation agent for clean-up of contaminated soil and groundwater.     

Determining conditional stability constants for Pb complexation by carboxymethyl-beta-cyclodextrin (CMCD)

Carboxymethyl-beta-cyclodextrin (CMCD) has been proposed for remediation of metal-contaminated sediments. This research presents stability constants for CMCD-lead complexes, and demonstrates a rigorous methodology for estimating stability constants for metal-complexing agents. The conditional stability constant for the lead-CMCD aqueous complex was determined to be 10(5.18) with the 95% confidence interval ranging from 10(5.14) to 10(5.22). The best fit for experimental data was made by assuming a reaction between divalent CMCD(2-) and Pb(2+) and using the WATEQ activity coefficient formulation. The optimized value was derived from experimental data with the geochemical model PHREEQC coupled to UCODE_2005, a parameter optimization program. Like FITEQL, UCODE has a built-in option to optimize parameter values by minimizing the weighted sum of squared residuals (WSSR). However, our approach not only allows rapid, automatic optimization of the stability constant, but also allows determination of uncertainties in estimated parameter values and statistical analysis to assess the appropriateness of the conceptual model. The automation of the process allows testing of multiple conceptual models and the final values produced are internally consistent with the PHREEQC database. In this case five different conceptual models to describe the metal complexation and protonation reactions of CMCD were considered.