FeS, as a natural reduced iron mineral, has been recognized to be a viable reactive material for As(III) sequestration in natural and engineered systems. In this study, FeS-coated sand packed columns were tested to evaluate the As(III) removal capacities under anaerobic conditions at pH 5, 7 and 9. The column obtained As(III) removal capacity was then compared with the capacity result obtained from batch reactors. In the comparison, two different approaches were used. The first approach was used the total As(III) removal capacity which method was proved to be useful for interpreting pH 5 system. The second approach was used to consider sorption non-linearity and proved to be useful for interpreting the pH 9. The results demonstrated that a mechanistic understanding of the different removal processes at different pH conditions is important to interpret the column experimental results. At pH 5, where the precipitation of arsenic sulfide plays the major role in the removal of arsenic, the column shows a greater removal efficiency than the batch system due to the continuous dissolution of sulfide and precipitation of arsenic sulfide. At pH 9, where adsorption mainly governs the arsenic removal, the sorption nonlinearity should be considered in the estimation of the column capacity. This study highlighted the importance of understanding reaction mechanism to predict column performance using batch-obtained experimental results.

Keywords: FeS-coated sand;reactive transport;precipitation/adsorption mechanism;column and batch comparison;