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A preliminary assessment on the use of biochar as a soil additive for reducing soil-to-plant uptake of cesium isotopes in radioactively contaminated environments

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Abstract

A series of K d tracer batch experiments were conducted to assess the absorptive-desorption properties of Biochar as a potential agent to selectively sequester labile soil Cs or otherwise help reduce the uptake of Cs isotopes into plants. A parallel experiment was conducted for strontium. Fine-grained fractionated Woodlands tree Biochar was found to have a relatively high affinity for Cs ions (K d > 100) relative to coral soil (K d < 10) collected from the Marshall Islands. The Biochar material also contains an abundance of K (and Mg). These findings support a hypothesis that the addition of Biochar as a soil amendment may provide a simple yet effective method for reducing soil-to-plant transfer of Cs isotopes in contaminated environments.

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Acknowledgments

This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. We thank our partners at the Office of Health and Safety (AU-10) at U.S. Department of Energy for funding support. Funding for a summer student internship (for IS) was received through the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity, Minority Serving Institutions (MSI) Program in partnership with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. All opinions expressed in this paper are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the policies and views of the DOE or LLNL.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Marshall Islands Dose Assessment and Radioecology Program, Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, 94550, USA

    Terry F. Hamilton, Roger E. Martinelli, Steven R. Kehl, Iris J. Smith, Sandra K. G. Peters & Michael W. Tamblin

  2. Carbolea Group, CES Department, University of Limerick, Limeric, Ireland

    Michael H. B. Hayes

  3. Northern Arizona University (NAU), Flagstaff, AZ, 86011, USA

    Iris J. Smith

  4. Gatusi Solutions, Divide, CO, 80814, USA

    Cindi L. Schmitt

  5. New Dark Earth, Space and Earth Carbon Research Environmental Team, Oneida, WI, 54155, USA

    Daniel Hawk

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  1. Terry F. Hamilton
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  2. Roger E. Martinelli
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  3. Steven R. Kehl
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  4. Michael H. B. Hayes
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  6. Sandra K. G. Peters
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Correspondence to Terry F. Hamilton.

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Hamilton, T.F., Martinelli, R.E., Kehl, S.R. et al. A preliminary assessment on the use of biochar as a soil additive for reducing soil-to-plant uptake of cesium isotopes in radioactively contaminated environments. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 307, 2015–2020 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-015-4520-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-015-4520-8

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