Effects of clay amendment on adsorption and desorption of copper in water repellent soils

Abstract

Copper is an important micronutrient and trace amounts are essential for crop growth. However, high concentrations of copper will produce toxic effects. Australia is increasingly developing production of crops in water repellent soils. Clay amendment, a common amelioration techniques used in Australia, has demonstrated agronomic benefits in increased crop or pasture production. The sorption and desorption of copper and the effect of clay treatment on copper behaviour in a water repellent soil collected from an experimental farm in South Australia is studied. We found that the water repellent soils amended with clay have an increased adsorption capacity of copper. Also the clay-amended soils had an increased ratio of specific sorption to total sorption of copper. The implications of this study to the sustainable agro-environmental management of water repellent soils is discussed.

Use of Illite Clay for In Situ Remediation of 137Cs-Contaminated Water Bodies: Field Demonstration of Reduced Biological Uptake

“…Because high 137 Cs mobility on the SRS is due in part to a low retention capacity of the kaolinitic-dominated soils, we hypothesized that adding micaceous minerals to contaminated water bodies would serve as an effective in situ remediation technique by sequestering 137 Cs and reducing its bioavailability. The use of micaceous amendments, such as illites, to sequester contaminants, including Cs, is not new ( − ). Most previous methods, however, have physically mixed the amendment within the contaminated soil and then tested the effectiveness using chemical adsorptive and/or desorptive tests.…”

Chitosan-g-poly(acrylic acid)-bentonite composite: a potential immobilizing agent of heavy metals in soil

“…To study the effect of biopolymer-bentonite composite addition on heavy metal adsorption by soils, a procedure (Xiong et al 2005;Tsadilas et al 2009;Uchimiya et al 2011;Li et al 2016;Bogusz et al 2017) similar to the aqueous system was followed. To 1 g soil, 0.05 g chitosan-bentonite composite was added, and the mixture was incubated for a fortnight at room temperature (25 o C).…”