The kinetics of Cd, Pb and Cr extraction from artificially polluted soils

The kinetics of Cd, Pb and Cr extraction with HCl from polluted chernozem and humous alluvial soils was investigated. The efficiency of the extraction was more than 90% for Cd and more than 80% for Pb. In both cases, the extraction reached the equilibrium state. For Cd and Pb, the metal-ion removal processes in the first 4 h of extraction can be modelled by two simultaneous, pseudo-first-order, irreversible reactions. One of the reactions is fast and can be attributed to H⁺–Mⁿ⁺ exchange reaction occurring on the surface of inorganic minerals as well as in the metal–humic acid complexes and to the dissolution of the water-insoluble precipitates.The minor portion of the metal ions took part in a rather slow reaction, where H⁺ ions exchange with metal ions bound in the internal lattice sites. The slow dissolution of the metal compounds should also be considered. The slow extraction partly can be attributed to slow irreversible processes (e.g., diffusion from the internal lattice sites).In the case of Cr(III), the extraction was found to be a very slow process; the efficiency of removal was less than 25%. The system did not attain the equilibrium state. Presumably, the rates of extraction processes are intermediate between those of the slow and fast reactions.