Many of the pollutants that enter the aquatic environment become adsorbed onto the surface of particles and are carried out of the water column into the sediments. This phenomenon plays a major part in decontaminating the water supply but results in significant concentrations of toxicants entering the habitat of benthic organisms. It had been thought until fairly recently that the sediments acted as a sink that removed these chemicals from interaction with the biota, but more recent work has shown that a number of these materials remain bioavailable. Estimating the significance of this problem has been problematic as sediments show considerable spatial and temporal diversity in the variety and distribution of their properties. The purpose of this work was to explore the use of artificial particles with known surface properties to study these pollutant-particle-animal interactions. By identifying the factors involved in the binding and release of contaminants from particles in a controlled way it was hoped to learn something of the mechanisms involved in the natural environment. The results of this study indicate that there are some simple correlations between the relevant distribution coefficients of the pollutants, their environmental fate, and the complex behavior and assay of natural sediments.
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