The Role of Acid-Volatile Sulfide in Determining Cadmium Bioavailability and Toxicity in Freshwater Sediments

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine if the acid‐volatile sulfide (AVS) content of freshwater sediments was important in limiting the bioavailability and toxicity of cadmium. Five different concentrations of cadmium were spiked into sediments with three different AVS concentrations, and 10‐d exposures with the oligochaete Lumbriculus variegatus and the snail Helisoma sp. were conducted. Concurrent water‐only cadmium exposures were also conducted. When the cadmium‐to‐AVS ratios were ≤1, toxicity was not observed. At ratios ≤1, mean whole‐body cadmium residue concentrations of organisms were approximately equal to or less than the maximum residues obtained in survivors of the cadmium exposures in water only. These results corroborated the results of a previous experiment conducted with saltwater sediments and indicate that metal/AVS relationships could be used to establish numeric sediment quality criteria for use in the protection of aquatic life.

Cadmium accumulation in coastal demersal fish

“…The latter states that free ionic divalent metal ions, including Cd 2+ , do not accumulate in porewater and are thus not bioavailable to endo-and epibenthic organisms when the molar ratio of metal simultaneously extracted with AVS is <1 (Di Toro et al 1990, 1992, Carlson et al 1991, Ankley 1996. However, though metal concentrations in porewater may be mostly controlled by equilibration with metal sulfides in sediments, benthic organisms are not exclusively exposed to dissolved metals as demonstrated by Lee et al (2000a,b).…”

Measuring bioaccumulation of contaminants from field‐collected sediment in freshwater organisms: A critical review of laboratory methods

“…Although small invertebrates including midges, snails, isopods, and other amphipods have life history and practical characteristics that limit their utility in bioaccumulation assessments with field-contaminated sediments, radiolabeled analytical techniques that require much smaller sample sizes have enhanced their use in assessments with spiked sediments [45][46][47].…”

A new index for assessing heavy metal contamination in sediments of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal (Zaozhuang Segment): A case study

“…In addition, AVS generally exists in recent sediments in the form of solid FeS which is the metastable state during its transformation into pyrite and is also unstable from perspective of thermodynamics and kinetics. Thanks to a strong interaction between AVS and divalent heavy metal ions (usually including Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn) in sediments, those ions can replace Fe 2+ in iron sulfide compounds by means of Me 2+ + FeS → MeS + Fe 2+ (Me 2+ representing the divalent metal ions) to generate sulfides with lower solubility than that of FeS so as to be removed out of sediment pore water through precipitation and reduce both the movability and the biochemical activity of the heavy metal in sediments (Morse et al, 1987;Carlson, 1991). Meanwhile, large amounts of hydrogen sulfides ( H 2 S = H 2 S(aq) + HS − + S 2− ) dissolved in pore water also have a toxic and side effect on many benthos.…”