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Marked changes in biochar’s ability to directly immobilize Cd in soil with aging: implication for biochar remediation of Cd-contaminated soil

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Abstract

To investigate the change in biochar’s ability to directly immobilize Cd in soil, a successive wheat cultivation experiment was conducted. Three biochars with different Cd adsorption mechanisms were added to the soils, and a mesh bag was used to separate the soil particles (> 1 μm) from the biochar. The results showed that the ash contents and anionic contents (CO32− and PO43−) of the biochar decreased with the cultivation time, while the oxygen-containing functional group content and CEC of the biochar increased. As a result, the Cd concentration on biochar decreased, by 68.9% for WBC300, while unstable Cd species (acid soluble and reducible fraction of Cd) on biochar increased with successive cultivation, increasing from 3 to 17% for WBC300 in FS. Correspondingly, the ability of biochar to inhibit Cd accumulation in wheat decreased. The results of this study illustrated that the ability of biochar to directly immobilize Cd in soil is not permanent; it gradually decreases with aging in soil. The adsorption mechanism of Cd on biochar changed from precipitation to complexation, and ion exchange processes could be the main reason.

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Data availability

The datasets used or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41703106) and Natural Science Research Program of Shaanxi Province—General Project (2020JQ-719).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science & Technology, Xi’an, 710021, People’s Republic of China

    Xinhao Ren, Jiayi He, Fei He, Ting Wei, Honglei Jia & Junkang Guo

  2. Shaanxi Huadi Survey and Design Consulting Co. LTD, Xi’an, 710020, People’s Republic of China

    Qiao Chen

Authors
  1. Xinhao Ren
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  2. Jiayi He
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  3. Qiao Chen
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  4. Fei He
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  5. Ting Wei
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  6. Honglei Jia
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  7. Junkang Guo
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Contributions

Xinhao Ren: conceptualization, project administration, funding acquisition, writing—review and editing. Jiayi He: investigation, methodology writing—original draft preparation. Qiao Chen: methodology, software, validation, data curation. Fei He: formal analysis. Ting Wei: resources. Honglei Jia: visualization. Junkang Guo: review and editing. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Xinhao Ren.

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This manuscript was only submitted on Environmental Science and Pollution Research. The authors make sure they have permissions for the use of software, questionnaires/(webs) surveys and scales in their studies (if appropriate). This research may not be misapplied to pose a threat to public health or national security. There was no animal experiment in this manuscript.

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Results in this manuscript were presented clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation (including image based manipulation). All co-authors have seen and approved the manuscript and have agreed to its submissions for publication.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Ren, X., He, J., Chen, Q. et al. Marked changes in biochar’s ability to directly immobilize Cd in soil with aging: implication for biochar remediation of Cd-contaminated soil. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 73856–73864 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21000-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21000-8

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