Metal Removal Efficiency of Five Filter Media Intended for use in Road Stormwater Treatment Facilities

Sammanfattning: Roads, buildings, vehicles, and human activities cause spreading of pollutants, which partly end up in stormwater. The pollutant load contains solid particles of various size, hydrocarbons, organics, metals, nutrients, and microorganisms, which can have negative effects on water quality of surface-, coastal- and ground waters. Furthermore, urban development causes hardening of ground and reduced soil permeability that promotes rapid runoff during precipitation. The conversion from permeable to impermeable surfaces therefore lead to increased volumes stormwater but also decrease in stormwater water quality.  Stormwater runoff metals are bound to various particles or occur in the dissolved fraction which is more toxic to aquatic life. Infiltration to soil, sand or other media is common practice to reduce runoff and filtrate metals and many treatment facilities and filter media have therefore been assessed for their metal removal efficiencies. High metal removal is often achieved for total metals, but removal of dissolved fraction remains elusive in many studies. Hence the importance of evaluate removal of dissolved metals before application to stormwater treatment facilities.  The experimental column study of metal removal using commercially available reactive filter media showed that all filter media removal efficiencies in the order of zinc > copper > nickel. Removal efficiencies of chromium and lead were not considerably higher in tested filter media compared to the reference filter sand. Two filter media also leached chromium during the initial part of the experiment.