Nanoparticles are finding application in an increasingly wide array of products in everyday life. With increasing production and use, the likelihood that they will reach aquatic environments is growing. While much of the research to date has focused on the behaviour of nanoparticles in the water column, particularly in terms of agglomeration and dissolution processes, relatively little attention has been given to their interaction with sediment. In this work a range of experiments were carried out to test the sorptive ability of various clays for silver nanoparticles which had been encapsulated with different coatings over a period of 25 days. General trends were noted where cationic surfactants such as CTAB enhanced the adsorption of nanoparticles while anionic coatings showed slower adsorption. Nanoparticles treated with neutral high molecular weight polymer coatings such as PVP showed some desorption behaviour after initial adsorption although the possibility of some silver ion reduction may have led to higher surface plasmon resonance absorption values hence interfering with silver nanoparticle concentration measurements. To understand the exact processes occurring in this system further research is required to confirm that the adsorption-desorption equilibrium had shifted towards desorption after 11 days. Overall, the data presented herein show that nanoparticle interactions with clays and calcium carbonates are complex and are likely governed by both the chemical composition and the physical structure of the sorbent, and that such interactions are further significantly modulated by the nanoparticle coating.