Effects of Temperature, Ionic Strength and Humic Acid on the Transport of Graphene Oxide Nanoparticles in Geosynthetic Clay Liner

Yaohui Liu; Tao Jiang

doi:10.3390/ma17092082

Effects of Temperature, Ionic Strength and Humic Acid on the Transport of Graphene Oxide Nanoparticles in Geosynthetic Clay Liner

Materials (Basel). 2024 Apr 28;17(9):2082. doi: 10.3390/ma17092082.

Authors

Yaohui Liu¹, Tao Jiang²

Affiliations

¹ School of Mechanics and Civil Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221000, China.
² Department of Geotechnical Engineering, College of Civil Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China.

Abstract

With the wide application of graphene oxide nanoparticles (GONPs), a great amount of GONP waste is discarded and concentrated in landfills. It has been proven that GONPs have strong toxicity and could gather toxic substances due to their high adsorption capacity. GONPs will seriously pollute the surrounding environment if they leak through the geosynthetic clay liner (GCL) in landfills. To investigate various factors (temperature, ionic strength (IS) and humic acid (HA)) on the transport and retention of GONPs in the GCL, a self-designed apparatus was created and column tests were carried out. The experimental results show that GONPs could be transported through the GCL. The mobility and sorption ratio of GONPs in GCL decreased with an increase in temperature and IS, and increased with an increase in HA. The temperature had little effect on the deposition ratio of GONPs in the GCL. The deposition ratio of GONPs in the GCL increased with IS, and decreased with an increase in HA. The transport of GONPs in GCL, glass beads and quartz sand was compared, and the results show that the retention ability of the GCL is much better than other porous materials. The experimental results could provide significant references for the pollution treatment in landfills.

Keywords: deposition; geosynthetic clay liner; graphene oxide; temperature; transport.

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (projects No. 42307198), National Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20221148), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2023M733747) and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (XJ2021008101).