Adsorption of Cadmium on Degraded Soils Amended with Maize-Stalk-Derived Biochar

Caixia Wu, Yungui Li, Mengjun Chen, Xiang Luo, Yuwei Chen, Nelson Belzile and Sheng Huang
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Caixia Wu: Department of Environmental Engineering, School of Environment and Resource, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China
Yungui Li: Department of Environmental Engineering, School of Environment and Resource, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China
Mengjun Chen: Department of Environmental Engineering, School of Environment and Resource, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China
Xiang Luo: Department of Environmental Engineering, School of Environment and Resource, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China
Yuwei Chen: Department of Environmental Engineering, School of Environment and Resource, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China
Nelson Belzile: Department of Environmental Engineering, School of Environment and Resource, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China
Sheng Huang: Department of Environmental Engineering, School of Environment and Resource, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 11, 1-17

Abstract: Biochar has been extensively proven to distinctively enhance the sorption capacity of both heavy metal and organic pollutants and reduce the related environmental risks. Soil pollution and degradation widely coexist, and the effect of biochar addition on adsorption behavior by degraded soils is not well understood. Four degraded soils with different degrees of degradation were amended with maize-stalk-derived biochar to investigate the adsorption of cadmium using batch methods. The maximum adsorption capacity ( Q m ) of degraded soil remarkably decreased in comparison with undegraded soil (5361 mg·kg −1 →170 mg·kg −1 ), and the Q m of biochar increased with increasing pyrolysis temperature (22987 mg·kg −1 →49016 mg·kg −1 ) which was much higher than that of soil. The addition of biochar can effectively improve the cadmium adsorption capacity of degraded soil (36–328%). The improving effect is stronger when increasing either the degradation level or the amount of added biochar, or the pyrolysis temperature of biochar. Contrary to the general soil–biochar system, adsorption of Cd was not enhanced but slightly suppressed (7.1–36.6%) when biochar was incorporated with degraded soils, and the adsorptivity attenuation degree was found to be negatively linear with SOM content in the degraded soil–biochar system. The results of the present study suggest that more attention on the adsorption inhibition and acceleration effect difference between the soil–biochar system and the degraded soil–biochar system is needed.

Keywords: soil; degradation; biochar; cadmium; adsorption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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