Influence of Organic Matter and Temperature on the Sorption of Volatile Organic Compounds on Soil

토양 흡착에 대한 유기탄소와 온도의 영향

The headspace method has been acknowledged as a cost-effective and convenient method to analyze volatile organic compounds(VOCs) in soil. The headspace analysis is based on equilibrium partitioning of VOCs among water, air and soil in a closed system. However, the headspace method cannot be applied to soils where most of the VOCs remain sorbed even at high temperature. In this study, it was investigated how the sorption characteristics of VOCs varied with soil with different organic carbon contents and temperature. This study showed that all the VOCs were volatilized, not sorved, only in the soil with 5% organic carbon at 45$^{\circ}C$ or higher. Some fraction of VOCs remained in soil with 8% organic carbon at $65^{\circ}C$ of higher. Most of the VOCs remained sorbed in soil with 12% organic content even at 95$^{\circ}C$. This result suggested that the headspace method can be applied only to soils with little organic carbon content (less than 5%). In this case, 45$^{\circ}C$ seems to be high enough to volatilize all the VOCs from soil. Large particles still showed a significant sorption capacity for VOCs from soil. Large Particles still showed a significant sorption capacity for VOCs despite of their low level of organic carbon content. It was also shown that the organic carbon sorption coefficients (Koc) of VOCs varied with soils with different organic carbon content. This suggests that not only the organic matter content of soil but also the property of the organic matter in soil influence the sorption of VOCs to soil.