A solid-liquid extraction approach to elucidate the chemical availability of metals in soil and sediment assuming Langmuir isotherm behaviour.

In an earlier paper (Anal. Chim. Acta 514 (2004) 137) we claimed that the maximal extractability of a metal from soil or sediment for a user-defined extractant, i.e. the chemical availability in that particular extractant, may be biased as a result of inadequate volume to mass (V/m) ratios. Correcting for that artifact using an implementation of the simple linear isotherm model gave good results although we cautioned the general applicability. In this paper we will theoretically derive the limitations of that approach based on the more general assumption that sorption processes are described by a Langmuir isotherm. NIST reference material 8704 was extracted with 1moll(-1) NaOAc (adjusted to pH 5) to experimentally verify the applicability of the Langmuir isotherm approach and illustrate the deviations obtained for some metals using the linear isotherm approach. Of the seven metals measured (Cr, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, and Ba) only for Cr and Cu severe discrepancies between both approaches were found, which could be traced back to non-linear isotherm behaviour. Moreover, the Langmuir isotherm approach showed that the above mentioned extractability artifact is even more serious than earlier assumed applying the linear isotherm approach.