Abstract
The alginate-biochar formulation for metal removal from aquatic environments has been widely tried but its use for lowering phytoavailability of metals in the soil-crop continuum is limited. Biochar has been increasingly used as a soil amendment due to its potential for soil carbon sequestration and sorption capacity. Handling of powdery biochar as a soil top-dressing material is, however, cumbersome and vulnerable to loss by water and wind. In this experiment, biochar powder, which was pyrolyzed from oak trees, was encapsulated into beads with alginate, which is a naturally occurring polysaccharide found in brown algae. Both batch and pot experiments were conducted to examine the effects of the alginate-encapsulated biochar beads (BB), as compared to its original biochar powdery form (BP), on the Pb adsorption capacity and phytoavailability of soil Pb to lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.). The BB treatment improved reactivity about six times due to a higher surface area (287 m2 g−1) and five times due to a higher cation exchange capacity (50 cmolc kg−1) as compared to the BP treatment. The maximum sorption capacity of Pb was increased to 152 from 81 mg g−1 because of surface chemosorption. Adsorption of Pb onto BB followed multiple first-order kinetics and comprised fast and slow steps. More than 60% of the Pb was adsorbed in the fast step, i.e., within 3 h. Also, the BB treatment, up to the 5% level (w/w), increased soil pH from 5.4 to 6.5 and lowered the phytoavailable fraction of Pb in soil from 5.7 to 0.3 mg kg−1. The Pb concentrations in lettuce cultivated at 5% for the BP and BB treatments were similar but 63 and 66% lower, respectively, than those of the control soil. The results showed that the encapsulation of biochar with alginate enhanced adsorption by the biochar.
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The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
This work was carried out with the support of “Cooperative Research Program for Agriculture Science and Technology Development (Project No. RS-2023-00232079)” Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea. Also this study was in part supported by Kansas State University Organized Research Fund No. 381041.
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HS Kim: methodology, data analysis, and writing—original draft; YK Lee: data analysis and writing—original draft; BJ Park: investigation and formal analysis; JE Lee: literature search and data analysis; S S Jeong: literature search and data analysis; KR Kim: literature search and writing—review and editing; SC Kim: conceptualization and methodology MB Kirkham: writing—review and editing; JE Yang: conceptualization and writing—review and editing; KH Kim: funding acquisition and project administration; JH Yoon: conceptualization, methodology, and writing—review and editing. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript.
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Kim, H.S., Lee, Y.K., Park, B.J. et al. Alginate-encapsulated biochar as an effective soil ameliorant for reducing Pb phytoavailability to lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.). Environ Sci Pollut Res 31, 22802–22813 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-024-32594-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-024-32594-6