Laboratory Simulation on Phosphorus Releasing near the Water/ Sediment Interface in the East China Sea off the Changjiang Estuary

摘要

Surface sediment samples taken from the East China Sea off the Changjiang estuary are used as raw materials for phosphorus releasing experiment. It is found that after being thoroughly mixed with seawater for about 10 minutes, phosphorus released from the sediments reaches its maximum value. Adsorption kinetics can be fitted with both Elovich equation and two-constant rate equation. The releasing amount is closely related to the composition of the sediments. Phosphorus release from silty and muddy sediment is higher than from that dominated by sandy composition. For the desorption reaction, iron-phosphorus (Fe-P) is the most active one, with a releasing ratio higher than other phosphorus forms, followed by absorbed-phosphorus (Ad-P) and organic bound phosphorus (OP). All of them can be referred to as bio-available phosphorus. The results demonstrate that phosphorus in sediments can be released into seawater under suitable hydrodynamic conditions, and have a great impact on the nutrition state and primary productivity of marine biosphere.