New Insight into Organomineral Interactions in Soils. The Impact of Clay-Size Peat-Derived Organic Species on the Structure and the Strength of Soil Silt Aggregates

Kamil Skic, Agnieszka Adamczuk, Patrycja Boguta (), Angelika Gryta, Salman Masoudi Soltani, Svetlana Ignatova and Grzegorz Józefaciuk
Additional contact information
Kamil Skic: Institute of Agrophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Doświadczalna 4 Str., 20-290 Lublin, Poland
Agnieszka Adamczuk: Institute of Agrophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Doświadczalna 4 Str., 20-290 Lublin, Poland
Patrycja Boguta: Institute of Agrophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Doświadczalna 4 Str., 20-290 Lublin, Poland
Angelika Gryta: Institute of Agrophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Doświadczalna 4 Str., 20-290 Lublin, Poland
Salman Masoudi Soltani: Department of Chemical Engineering, Brunel University London, London UB8 3PH, UK
Svetlana Ignatova: Department of Chemical Engineering, Brunel University London, London UB8 3PH, UK
Grzegorz Józefaciuk: Institute of Agrophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Doświadczalna 4 Str., 20-290 Lublin, Poland

Agriculture, 2023, vol. 13, issue 12, 1-22

Abstract: Knowledge of the effects of different organic species on soil structure and strength is gained mostly from experiments on natural soils amended with organic substances of various particle sizes, pH, ionic composition, and inorganic impurities. It greatly diversifies the experimental results and shadows individual effects of organic amendments. Therefore, to look for a clearer view, we examined the impact of HCl-washed clay-size organic species: peat, humic acids, residue after humic acid extraction, and two biochars, all derived from the same peat and having similar particles, on the structure and strength of artificial soil silt aggregates using mercury intrusion porosimetry, bulk density measurements, SEM, and uniaxial compression. Bulk density increased due to humic acid addition and decreased for the other amendments. The total pore volumes behaved oppositely. All organic substances except humic acid decreased the pore surface fractal dimension, indicating a smoothening of the pore surface. Humic acid appeared to occupy mostly the spaces between the silt grains skeleton, while the other species were also located upon silt grains. The latter effect was most evident for 600 °C heated biochar. Humic acid, peat, and the residue after humic acid extraction improved mechanical stability, whereas both biochars weakened the aggregates, which means that bulk density plays a smaller role in the mechanical stability of granular materials, as it is usually considered. A new equation relating maximum stress and the amount of the organic additives was proposed.

Keywords: organic carbon; silt aggregates; aggregate structure; aggregate strength; mercury porosimetry; bulk density; uniaxial compression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/12/2241/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/12/2241/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:13:y:2023:i:12:p:2241-:d:1294097

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().