Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2018ND347B

Enhanced Removal of Heavy Metals from Stormwater by Bioretention Cells

Institute: North Dakota
Year Established: 2018 Start Date: 2018-03-01 End Date: 2019-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $6,000 Total Non-Federal Funds: $12,000

Principal Investigators: Feng Xiao

Project Summary: Heavy metals, including copper, zinc, arsenic, lead, and cadmium are common stormwater contaminants. Some of these heavy metals, such as copper and zinc, are minor nutrients to humans, but in higher doses, they can cause a range of adverse effects, including morphological and physiological disorders. Other heavy metals such as arsenic and cadmium are toxic to humans even at a low concentration. In the United States, the contamination by heavy metals have caused the impairment of 42% of lake acres, with the non-point source (i.e., stormwater runoff) as the primary contamination source. In this project, we aim to develop amendment-enhanced bioretention cells for removing heavy metals from stormwater. A range of low-cost materials will be tested as the amendment adsorbents/stabilizers to the bioretention cells. Specially, we will 1) study the interactions between the amendments (e.g., biochar and woodchips) and heavy metals in batch experiments and 2) select the candidate amendments for column experiments.