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In order to profit from recycling sewage sludge through the soil‐plant system, it is necessary to know the amount of mineralizable organic‐N from sludge. The purpose of this study was to determine N‐mineralization of two sewage sludges in two different soils, comparing leached and nonleached incubation procedures. The cumulative N mineralized during successive incubation periods increased linearly with incubation time and sludge incorporation rate. The mineralization process was more influenced by soil type than by rate and kind of sludge applied. The amount of mineralized‐N was higher for the leaching procedure. This cumulative‐N expressed as the percentage of applied organic‐N was inversely dependent on sewage sludge rate added for the leached procedure and is independent of the rate for the nonleached. The N‐mineralization rate was 0.0202 ± 0.0011 and 0.0650 ± 0.0068 d−1, respectively, for leached and nonleached procedures. The potentially mineralizable N increased with the sludge rate applied and was higher for aerobic sludge and neutral soil. In general, the leached method gave twofold higher vlaues than the nonleached method. The net percentage of potentially mineralizable N vs. organic‐N added was 43.0 ± 7.8 and 27.7 ± 4.0, respectively, for leached and nonleached procedures.

A study of the ecotoxicity of different short aliphatic protic ionic liquids (PILs) on terrestrial organisms was conducted. Tests performed within the present study include those assessing the effects of PILs on soil microbial functions (carbon and nitrogen mineralization) and terrestrial plants. The results show that the nominal lowest-observed-adverse-effect concentration (LOAEC) values were 5,000 mg/kg (dry soil) for the plant test in two species (Lolium perenne, Allium cepa), 1,000 mg/kg (dry soil) for the plant test in one species (Raphanus sativus), and 10,000 mg/kg (dry soil) for carbon and nitrogen microbial transformation tests (all concentrations are nominal). Most of the median effective concentration values (EC50) were above 1,000 mg/kg (dry soil). Based on the obtained results, these compounds can be described as nontoxic for soil microbiota and the analyzed plants, and potentially biodegradable in soils, as can be deduced from the respirometric experiment. The toxicity rises with the increase of complexity of the PILs molecule (branch and length of aliphatic chain) among the three PILs analyzed.

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