An intergrated approach to understanding the sorption mechanism of phenanthrene by cork

Previous studies have shown the high sorption affinity of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by cork. The aim of the present work is to go further by investigating the sorption mechanism of PAHs (exemplified by phenanthrene) on cork and the availability of the chemical components (i.e. lignin, suberin, holocellulose and extractives) to retain phenanthrene. Two approaches were integrated to reach this objective: 1) statistical multivariate analysis to obtain correlations between the sorption capacity, measured as Koc , and the sorbent properties (i.e. polarity, acidic functional groups, %dichloromethane extractives, %ethanol extractives, %suberine, %lignin and %holocelulose) and 2) modelling calculations to obtain information on interaction at the molecular level. The statistical multivariate analysis demonstrated a strong and positive correlation between Koc and the lignin content as well as negative correlations between Koc and the phenolic groups and %DCM extractives contents. The modelling study showed that the lignin-phenanthrene interaction is mostly hydrophobic in nature being largely determined by the -stacking interaction between the aromatic groups of the interacting partners. This result justifies the observed correlations as DCM extractives, being hydrophobic, compete with phenanthrene adsorption, whereas phenolic groups, as well as negatively charged groups, enhance the hydrophilic character of the sorbent surface, thus hindering the adsorption of phenanthrene.