Effect of Sediment Gas Voids and Ebullition on Benthic Solute Exchange. A new scientific article in "Environmental Science &Technology"
Natural methane bubble release from freshwater sediments was traditionally believed to enhance the mobility of dissolved substances in sediment porewater. However, our work demonstrates that free gas bubbles in the sediment slows down the diffusion of soluble substances. On the contrary, these gas voids considerably enhance the diffusion of low-soluble and volatile substances. Even small amounts of gas can increase the fluxes of low-soluble dissolved species by several factors, while simultaneously suppressing the flux of soluble dissolved species.