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Effects of surfactants on low-molecular-weight organic acids to wash soil zinc

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Abstract

Soil washing is an effective approach to the removal of heavy metals from contaminated soil. In this study, the effects of the surfactants sodium dodecyl sulfate, Triton X-100, and non-ionic polyacrylamide (NPAM) on oxalic acid, tartaric acid, and citric acid used to remove zinc from contaminated soils were investigated. The Zn removal efficiencies of all washing solutions showed a logarithmic increase with acid concentrations from 0.5 to 10.0 g/L, while they decreased as pH increased from 4 to 9. Increasing the reaction time enhanced the effects of surfactants on Zn removal efficiencies by the acids during washing and significantly (P < 0.05) improved the removal under some mixed cases. Oxalic acid suffered antagonistic effects from the three surfactants and seriously damaged soil nutrients during the removal of soil Zn. Notably, the three surfactants caused synergistic effects on tartaric and citric acid during washing, with NPAM leading to an increase in Zn removal by 5.0 g/L citric acid of 10.60 % (P < 0.05) within 2 h. NPAM also alleviated the loss of cation exchange capacity of washed soils and obviously improved soil nitrogen concentrations. Overall, combining citric acid with NPAM offers a promising approach to the removal of zinc from contaminated soil.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Projects of Sci-tech Support, Sichuan, China (No. 2014NZ0044) and the Projects of National Sci-tech Support, China (No. 2012BAD14B18-2). We thank Qinmei Zhong, Chuer Zhang, and Luoyi Xiao of the Sichuan Agricultural University, for supporting this investigation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environment, Sichuan Agricultural University, Wenjiang, 611130, People’s Republic of China

    Yue Chen, Shirong Zhang, Xiaoxun Xu, Ping Yao & Guiyin Wang

  2. College of Resources, Sichuan Agricultural University, Wenjiang, 611130, People’s Republic of China

    Yue Chen, Ping Yao, Ting Li, Guiyin Wang, Yun Li & Ouping Deng

  3. College of Agriculture, Sichuan Agricultural University, Wenjiang, 611130, People’s Republic of China

    Guoshu Gong

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  1. Yue Chen
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  2. Shirong Zhang
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Correspondence to Shirong Zhang.

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Chen, Y., Zhang, S., Xu, X. et al. Effects of surfactants on low-molecular-weight organic acids to wash soil zinc. Environ Sci Pollut Res 23, 4629–4638 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-015-5700-3

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