Analyzing sediment dissolved oxygen based on microprofile modeling

Sediment plays a key role in controlling the oxygen demand of aquatic systems. The reaction rate, penetration depth, and flux across the sediment–water interface (SWI) are important factors in sediment oxygen consumption. However, there were few methods to collect these data until recently. In this study, methods were developed to simulate the oxygen microprofile and calculate the sediment oxygen consumption rate, oxygen penetration depth, and oxygen flux across the SWI. We constructed a sediment oxygen measuring system using an oxygen microelectrode and a control device. The simulation equations were derived from both zero and first-order kinetic models, while the penetration depth and the oxygen flux were calculated from the simulation results. The method was tested on four prepared sediment samples. Decreases in dissolved oxygen in surface sediment were clearly detected by the microelectrode. The modeled data were a good fit for the observed data (R ²?>?0.95), and zero-order kinetics were more suitable than first-order kinetics. The values for penetration depth (1.3–3.9 mm) and oxygen fluxes (0.061–0.114 mg/cm²/day) calculated by our methods are comparable with those from other studies.