Characterization of sewage plant hydrocolloids using asymmetrical flow field-flow fractionation and ICP-mass spectrometry

Asymmetrical flow field-flow fractionation (AF⁴) was applied to characterize aquatic colloids from biological sewage plants and to infer information of colloidal loads, sources, and sinks within the plants, resp. the colloidal interaction with the aqueous phase and the sewage sludge. To characterize the colloids further, especially the distributions of colloid associated heavy metals, the AF⁴ system was coupled to an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS). The size distribution is determined by AF⁴ with UV absorbance and fluorescence detection after a calibration by monodisperse polystyrene sulfonate standards (PSS). Samples from different sewage plants and from different depths and locations within a plant were compared. The fulvic/humic acid fraction with a particle diameter d_p<10 nm appeared to be comparable in all samples and decreases only slightly along the plants, whereas larger colloids with d_p>10 nm almost completely passed into the sewage sludge. The concentrations of the initial colloidal heavy metals decreased along the plants.