Abstract
The emissions of ammonia (NH3) from soil have accelerated rapidly and have affected both vegetation and the atmosphere. It is thus necessary to investigate not only the amounts of NH3 gas released from the soil surface but also the dynamics of NH3 gas in the soil. Active sampling and diffusive sampling have been adopted to measure the components of soil air. However, gas aspiration for active sampling inevitably collects a wide range of soil gases. We examined the application of passive sampling to NH3 gas measurements in soil and compared the outcome to active sampling results. In laboratory experiments, the performance of the present passive sampler in moist soil was investigated. When immersed in solution, the passive sampler collected gas released from the solution, depending on the vapor pressure of the volatile substance. In laboratory experiments measuring NH3 gas in soil, there were no significant differences among the values measured by passive sampler at each measurement point. Thus, we concluded that the passive sampler can accurately measure NH3 gas in soil. In field experiments, the average NH3 gas concentrations were 43 ppb in urea-added soil and 1 ppb in control soil. The relative standard deviation of NH3 concentrations in urea-added soil was large. This result is expected because soil characteristics can change under the influence of ambient environmental factors such as wind, rain, and temperature. In other words, the spatial differences in NH3 emissions were reflected in the passive sampler measurements.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Baek, B. H., Aneja, V. P., & Tong, Q. (2004). Chemical coupling between ammonia, acid gases, and fine particles. Environmental Pollution, 129(1), 89–98. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2003.09.022.
Bensaddek, L., Gillet, F., Saucedo, J. E. N., & Fliniaux, M.-A. (2001). The effect of nitrate and ammonium concentrations on growth and alkaloid accumulation of Atropa belladonna hairy roots. Journal of Biotechnology, 85(1), 35–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0168-1656(00)00372-2.
Beusen, A. H. W., Bouwman, A. F., Heuberger, P. S. C., Van Drecht, G., & Van Der Hoek, K. W. (2008). Bottom-up uncertainty estimates of global ammonia emissions from global agricultural production systems. Atmospheric Environment, 42(24), 6067–6077. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2008.03.044.
Bristow, K. L., Campbell, G. S., Papendick, R. I., & Elliott, L. F. (1986). Simulation of heat and moisture transfer through a surface residue—soil system. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 36(3), 193–214. https://doi.org/10.1016/0168-1923(86)90035-3.
De Vries, W. (1988). Critical deposition levels for nitrogen and sulphur on dutch forest ecosystems. Water, Air, and Soil Pollution, 42(1), 221–239. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00282403.
Drewer, J., Braban, C. F., Tang, Y. S., Anderson, M., Skiba, U. M., Dragosits, U., et al. (2015). Surface greenhouse gas fluxes downwind of a penguin colony in the maritime sub-Antarctic. Atmospheric Environment, 123, 9–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2015.10.062.
Feigley, C. E., & Lee, B. M. (1987). Determination of sampling rates of passive samplers for organic vapors based on estimated diffusion coefficients. American Industrial Hygiene Association Journal, 48(10), 873–876. https://doi.org/10.1080/15298668791385732.
Galloway, J. N., Dentener, F. J., Capone, D. G., Boyer, E. W., Howarth, R. W., Seitzinger, S. P., et al. (2004). Nitrogen cycles: past, present, and future. Biogeochemistry, 70(2), 153–226. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-004-0370-0.
Hamada, Y., & Tanaka, T. (2001). Dynamics of carbon dioxide in soil profiles based on long-term field observation. Hydrological Processes, 15(10), 1829–1845. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.242.
Hoekstra, E. J., Duyzer, J. H., De Leer, E. W. B., & Brinkman, U. A. T. (2001). Chloroform-concentration gradients in soil air and atmospheric air, and emission fluxes from soil. Atmospheric Environment, 35(1), 61–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1352-2310(00)00285-5.
Kirchner, M., Jakobi, G., Feicht, E., Bernhardt, M., & Fischer, A. (2005). Elevated NH3 and NO2 air concentrations and nitrogen deposition rates in the vicinity of a highway in Southern Bavaria. Atmospheric Environment, 39(25), 4531–4542. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2005.03.052.
Kot-Wasik, A., Zabiegala, B., Urbanowicz, M., Dominiak, E., Wasik, A., & Namiesnik, J. (2007). Advances in passive sampling in environmental studies. Analytica Chimica Acta, 602(2), 141–163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aca.2007.09.013.
Krupa, S. V. (2003). Effects of atmospheric ammonia (NH3) on terrestrial vegetation: a review. Environmental Pollution, 124(2), 179–221. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0269-7491(02)00434-7.
Lan, T. T. N., Nishimura, R., Tsujino, Y., Imamura, K., Warashina, M., Hoang, N. T., et al. (2004). Atmospheric concentrations of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, ammonia, hydrogen chloride, nitric acid, formic and acetic acids in the south of Vietnam measured by the passive sampling method. Analytical Sciences, 20(1), 213–217. https://doi.org/10.2116/analsci.20.213.
Lelieveld, J., Evans, J. S., Fnais, M., Giannadaki, D., & Pozzer, A. (2015). The contribution of outdoor air pollution sources to premature mortality on a global scale. Nature, 525(7569), 367–371. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature15371.
Li, Y., Schichtel, B. A., Walker, J. T., Schwede, D. B., Chen, X., Lehmann, C. M., et al. (2016). Increasing importance of deposition of reduced nitrogen in the United States. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 113(21), 5874–5879. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1525736113.
Liu, X., Zhang, Y., Han, W., Tang, A., Shen, J., Cui, Z., et al. (2013). Enhanced nitrogen deposition over China. Nature, 494, 459. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11917 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11917#supplementary-information.
Massman, W. J. (1998). A review of the molecular diffusivities of H2O, CO2, CH4, CO, O3, SO2, NH3, N2O, NO, and NO2 in air, O2 and N2 near STP. Atmospheric Environment, 32(6), 1111–1127. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1352-2310(97)00391-9.
Moore, C. W., Castro, M. S., & Brooks, S. B. (2011). A simple and accurate method to measure total gaseous mercury concentrations in unsaturated soils. Water, Air, & Soil Pollution, 218(1), 3–9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-010-0691-7.
Ni, J. (1999). Mechanistic models of ammonia release from liquid manure: a review. Journal of Agricultural Engineering Research, 72(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1006/jaer.1998.0342.
Pacholski, A., Cai, G., Nieder, R., Richter, J., Fan, X., Zhu, Z., et al. (2006). Calibration of a simple method for determining ammonia volatilization in the field—comparative measurements in Henan Province, China. Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems, 74(3), 259–273. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10705-006-9003-4.
Schmohl, A., Miklos, A., & Hess, P. (2001). Effects of adsorption–desorption processes on the response time and accuracy of photoacoustic detection of ammonia. Applied Optics, 40(15), 2571–2578. https://doi.org/10.1364/AO.40.002571.
Seethapathy, S., Gorecki, T., & Li, X. (2008). Passive sampling in environmental analysis. Journal of Chromatography A, 1184(1–2), 234–253. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chroma.2007.07.070.
Singh, J., Kunhikrishnan, A., Bolan, N. S., & Saggar, S. (2013). Impact of urease inhibitor on ammonia and nitrous oxide emissions from temperate pasture soil cores receiving urea fertilizer and cattle urine. Science of Total Environment, 465, 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2013.02.018.
Sommer, S. G., McGinn, S. M., Hao, X., & Larney, F. J. (2004). Techniques for measuring gas emissions from a composting stockpile of cattle manure. Atmospheric Environment, 38(28), 4643–4652. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2004.05.014.
Todd, R. W., Cole, N. A., Clark, R. N., Flesch, T. K., Harper, L. A., & Baek, B. H. (2008). Ammonia emissions from a beef cattle feedyard on the southern High Plains. Atmospheric Environment, 42(28), 6797–6805. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2008.05.013.
Viguria, M., Sanz-Cobeña, A., López, D. M., Arriaga, H., & Merino, P. (2015). Ammonia and greenhouse gases emission from impermeable covered storage and land application of cattle slurry to bare soil. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 199, 261–271. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2014.09.016.
Wang, Y. Y., Hu, C. S., Ming, H., Zhang, Y. M., Li, X. X., Dong, W. X., et al. (2013). Concentration profiles of CH4, CO2 and N2O in soils of a wheat–maize rotation ecosystem in North China Plain, measured weekly over a whole year. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 164, 260–272. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2012.10.004.
Warashina, M., Tanaka, M., Tsujino, Y., Mizoguchi, T., Hatakeyama, S., & Maeda, Y. (2001). Atmospheric concentrations of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide in China and Korea measured by using the improved passive sampling method. Water, Air, and Soil Pollution, 130(1), 1505–1510. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1013941820431.
Wilson, E. J., & Skeffington, R. A. (1994). The effects of excess nitrogen deposition on young Norway spruce trees. Part II the vegetation. Environmental Pollution, 86(2), 153–160. https://doi.org/10.1016/0269-7491(94)90186-4.
Wu, X., Yao, Z., Brüggemann, N., Shen, Z. Y., Wolf, B., Dannenmann, M., et al. (2010). Effects of soil moisture and temperature on CO2 and CH4 soil–atmosphere exchange of various land use/cover types in a semi-arid grassland in Inner Mongolia, China. Soil Biology and Biochemistry, 42(5), 773–787. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2010.01.013.
Xing, J., Pleim, J., Mathur, R., Pouliot, G., Hogrefe, C., Gan, C. M., et al. (2013). Historical gaseous and primary aerosol emissions in the United States from 1990 to 2010. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 13(15), 7531–7549. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-7531-2013.
Yamulki, S., Harrison, R. M., & Goulding, K. W. T. (1996). Ammonia surface-exchange above an agricultural field in Southeast England. Atmospheric Environment, 30(1), 109–118. https://doi.org/10.1016/1352-2310(95)00233-O.
Yu, Y., Zhao, C., Jia, H., Niu, B., Sheng, Y., & Shi, F. (2017). Effects of nitrogen fertilizer, soil temperature and moisture on the soil-surface CO2 efflux and production in an oasis cotton field in arid northwestern China. Geoderma, 308, 93–103. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2017.07.032.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Fukae, K., Takenaka, N. Application of Passive Sampler for Ammonia Gas in Soil. Water Air Soil Pollut 229, 145 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-018-3797-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-018-3797-y