• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.30 no.7
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• pp.712-720
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• 2008

Sediment and interstitial water samples from ten lagoons in the Northeastern coastal part of South Korea were analyzed to obtain the concentrations of metals and inorganic ligand. These data, coupled with pH and ionic strength, were used to compute the aqueous speciation of the metals in the interstitial water using the MINTEQA2 equilibrium program. The K and Na were almost entirely present as the free aqua ions, but Co, Cd, Ni, Pb and Zn were existed as various metal-ligand complexes. Metals such as Al, As, and Cr formed 3$\sim$4 metal-ligand complexes. In the interstitial water with high chloride concentrations, almost all of the metals were dominated by free aqua ions. Metals of Cd, Co, Ni, Pb and Zn were bound as chloride-metal complexes of the type M$^{x+}$ + xCl$^-$, and Fe, Mn and Mg were dominated by sulfate equilibria(M$^{2+}$ + SO$_4{^{2-}}$). Hg(II) was speciated as HgCl$_2$(aq), HgCl$_3{^-}$ and HgCl$_4{^-}$. However, in the interstitial water with low chloride concentrations, Hg(II) and Cd(II) were existed as chloride-metal complexes, metals of Cu, Mg, Mn, Ni, Pb and Zn were dominated by sulfate equilibria, and the speciation of Fe(II) was bound as Fe(OH)$_2{^+}$, Fe(OH)$_3$(aq). However, Al, As and Cr were dominated by hydroxy-metal and oxide-metal species in nearly all of the lagoons.