Iron hydroxides, humic substance

EDR is typically used for demineralization of brackish water, which often contains poorly soluble minerals such as calcium bicarbonate and calcium sulfate, as well as colloids such as humic and fulvic acids and iron hydroxides The periodic reversal of the direction of the electric current avoids scaling and fouling of the membranes by such substances. 

Anion adsorption and then the exchange of anions mainly takes place on the protonated surface sites of silicates and other oxides (e.g., iron, manganese oxides) and hydroxides, as well as on the positive functional group (e.g., protonated amino groups) of humic substances. It is directed by electrostatic forces. The degree of anion exchange of rocks and soils is usually much less than that of cation exchange. 

Davis, C. C., Knocke, W. R., and Edwards, M., 2001, Implications of aqueous silica sorption to iron hydroxide Mobilization of iron colloids and interference with sorption of arsenate and humic substances Environmental Science Technology, v. 35, p. 3158-3162. 

A useful procedure for the isolation of humic substances from groundwater is that of Thurman and Malcolm (1981) with the following modifications. Hydrochloric acid should be added immediately to the water sample to prevent the precipitation of iron hydroxide, and the sample should be evacuated with a vacuum pump to remove hydrogen sulfide. If the sulfide is not removed, it can react to form both elemental sulfur and polysulfides that adsorb onto and clog the XAD resin (Leenheer and Noyes, in press Thurman, 1979). 

Acidification of aqueous concentrates and extracts to pH near 1 is the standard procedure to precipitate humic from fulvic acid, and this procedure also has been applied to aquatic humic substances (Thurman and Malcolm, 1981). Aquatic humic substances that interact significantly with metal ions can be precipitated from water by addition of lead(Il) nitrate (Klocking and Mucke, 1969). Co-precipitation of aquatic humic materials with aluminum, copper, iron, and magnesium hydroxides has been used to recover aquatic humic substances from various types of water (Jeffrey and Hood, 1958 Williams and Zirino, 1964 Zeichmann, 1976). Humic acids can also be precipitated from an unconcentrated water sample by adding acetic acid and isoamyl alcohol to a sample contained in a separatory funnel, and after shaking, humic acid precipitates at the alcohol-water interface (Martin and Pierce, 1971). Precipitation methods are among the crudest of fractionation methods... 

Tipping, E. (1981) The adsorption of aquatic humic substances by iron hydroxides. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 45., 191-199. 

Humic acids are soluble in weak alkaline solutions and are essentially insoluble in water and mineral acids. They may be precipitated from solution by the action of mineral acids and bivalent or trivalent cations, however, they are fairly resistant to the acid hydrolysis. They are dark spherocol-loids with a cross-linked structure which plays a part in their high sorption capacity. They exhibit different degrees of a tendency to aggregation and very different degrees of dispersion. In comparison with other types of natural organic substances, the humic acids are characterized by their extraordinary stability in the soil. This stability is due to their ability to form organomineraJ complexes, particularly with clay minerals and with aluminium and iron hydroxides. 

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