ABSTRACT
Pollutant fate in an environmental system is highly dependent on sorptive behavior. In addition to an obvious effect on physical transport, sorption can be involved directly or indirectly in pollutant degradation. The chemical reactivity of a pollutant in a sorbed state may differ significantly from that in aqueous solution, both in extent and chemical pathway. Moreover, natural sorbents may indirectly mediate solution phase processes by altering the solution phase pollutant concentration, or by controlling pollutant release into the aqueous phase and thereby potentially rate-limiting the solution phase reaction. In addition, natural sorbents "introduce" into solution a "buffered" suite of inorganic and organic species that may significantly affect pollutant reactivity in the aqueous phase. An understanding of these sorptive processes is an important key to describing pollutant fate in aquatic systems. Organic pollutants vary in size and in water solubility from complete miscibility to virtual insolubility.
