Binding characteristics of Cu2+ to natural humic acid fractions sequentially extracted from the lake sediments

Humic acids (HAs) determine the distribution, toxicity, bioavailability, and ultimate fate of heavy metals in the environment. In this work, ten HA fractions (F1–F10) were used as adsorbent, which were sequentially extracted from natural sediments of Lake Wuliangsuhai, to investigate the binding characteristics of Cu²⁺ to HA. On the basis of the characterization results, differences were found between the ten extracted HA fractions responding to their elemental compositions and acidic functional groups. The characterization results reveal that the responses of ten extracted HA fractions to their elemental compositions and acidic functional groups were different. The O/C and (O + N)/C ratio of F1–F8 approximately ranged from 0.66 to 0.53 and from 0.72 to 0.61, respectively; the measured results showed that the contents of phenolic groups and carboxyl groups decreased from 4.46 to 2.60 mmol/g and 1.60 to 0.58 mmol/g, respectively. The binding characteristics of Cu²⁺ to the ten HA fractions were well modeled by the bi-Langmuir model; the binding behavior of Cu²⁺ to all the ten HA fractions were strongly impacted by pH and ionic strength. The FTIR and SEM-EDX image of HA fractions (pre- and post-adsorption) revealed that carboxyl and phenolic groups were responsible for the Cu²⁺ sorption on the ten sequentially extracted HA fractions process, which is the same with the analysis of the ligand binding and bi-Langmuir models Accordingly, the adsorption capacity of the former HA fractions on Cu²⁺ were higher than the latter ones, which may be attributed to the difference of carboxyl and phenolic group contents between the former and latter extracted HA fractions. Additionally, the functional groups with N and S should not be neglected. This work is hopeful to understand the environmental effect of humic substances, environmental geochemical behavior, and bioavailability of heavy metals in lakes.