Impact of non-ideal sorption on low-concentration tailing behavior for atrazine transport in two natural porous media

The impact of non-ideal sorption on atrazine transport was investigated for two sandy porous media with 0.38% and 0.03% organic-carbon contents. In contrast to prior investigations, effluent atrazine concentrations were monitored over a range of five orders of magnitude to examine long-term elution behavior. As characterized by batch-experiments, atrazine experienced nonlinear sorption for both media. The results of the column experiments showed that atrazine exhibited extensive elution tailing (delayed approach to relative concentration of zero). This non-ideal transport was more pronounced for the medium with higher organic-carbon content. A mathematical model incorporating nonlinear, rate-limited sorption/desorption described by a continuous-distribution function was used to successfully simulate atrazine transport.