Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons^™

Concentration And Composition Of Nanoparticles And Colloidal Particles In A Mine-Waste Contaminated River, Kaitlin Rose Perkins

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Metals and metalloids (metal(loid)s) in aquatic ecosystems are often described through measures of their concentrations in whole and filtered waters. The filtered fraction is operationally defined as “dissolved,” and assumed to be primarily composed of free metal(loid) ions or of ions bound by low molecular weight organic matter. This definition ignores that the dissolved fraction also likely contains colloidal particles (1 to 1000 nm) that can pass through commonly used filters. This colloidal fraction can also be preferentially removed from the water column by algae and other aquatic organisms compared to free metal(loid) ions and organic bound metal(loid)s. Though they …