Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Availability of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in aging soils

  • ISMESS 2009 • RESEARCH ARTICLE
  • Published:
Journal of Soils and Sediments Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

The soil contamination by hydrophobic organic contaminants (HOCs), such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), poses great threats to human health and ecological security and attracts worldwide concerns. The total HOC concentrations overestimate its available fraction to the soil biota. Increased understanding of the availabilities of PAHs in soil environment will have considerable benefits for their risk assessment and be very instructive to food safety and remediation strategies in contaminated sites. However, the availability of PAHs in aging soils and particularly the correlations of the availabilities with their forms in soils have yet to be elucidated. In this work, the availabilities of PAHs in aging soils were evaluated using a sequential mild extraction technique.

Materials and methods

Four typical zonal soils in China previously free of PAHs were collected from A (0–20 cm) horizon, air-dried, and sieved. Soils were spiked with a solution of phenanthrene and pyrene as representative PAHs in acetone. After the acetone evaporated off, the treated soils were progressively diluted with unspiked soils and sieved again several times to homogenize the soil samples. The forms of PAHs in soils were experimented using microcosms that are similar to those reported in literature. Various treated soils were packed into amber glass microcosms (each with 25 g soil). Three replications were given for each treatment. NaN3 solution (0.5%) was added to some microcosms in order to get the microbe-inhibited treatments. The soil water contents were adjusted to be 20% of soil water-holding capacity. After incubation for 0, 2, 4, 8, 12, and 16 weeks in microcosms with a temperature of 25°C, the soils were sampled. PAHs were then extracted by a sequential mild extraction technique, and their forms and availabilities were determined.

Results and discussion

The available residual concentrations of phenanthrene and pyrene generally decreased with aging time, and the PAHs were more readily available at the start of the incubation, but their availabilities decreased rapidly with increasing the soil-PAH contact time. In addition, the degradation efficiency of the available PAHs in soils was generally higher for PAHs with low molecular weight. The available residues of PAHs in soils were fractionated into desorbing and non-desorbing fractions. The desorbing fractions were the largest portion of the available PAHs in soils. In addition, the desorbing fractions were the main portion to be readily biodegradable. The non-desorbing fractions of PAHs were less bioavailable and with less possibility to be biodegraded in soils. The dissipation of the desorbing PAH fractions accounted for the dominant contribution to the dissipation of the available fractions of tested PAHs. The formation of bound PAH residues was observed in soils. However, the concentrations of the bound residual PAHs were very low. Comparing with the microbial biodegradation, the transformation of PAHs from available fractions to bound residues was a negligible contribution to the dissipation of available fractions of tested PAHs in soils.

Conclusions

A mild extraction technique was utilized for the evaluation of the availabilities of phenanthrene and pyrene in aging soils. We found that the available residues of tested PAHs generally decreased with time resulting dominantly from microbial biodegradation. The desorbing fractions were the largest portion of the available fractions of PAHs. The dissipation of the desorbing PAH fractions accounted for the dominant contribution to dissipation of the available fractions of tested PAHs, and in contrast, the transformation of PAHs from available fractions to their bound residues contributed little to the dissipation of their available residues in soils. In this work, the correlations of the availability of PAHs with their forms in soils were elucidated, and a useful method on this subject was provided, which would be very instructive to other HOCs in soil environment.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Alexander M (2000) Aging, bioavailability, and overestimation of risk from environmental pollutants. Environ Sci Technol 34:4259–4265

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bogan BW, Sullivan WR (2003) Physicochemical soil parameters affecting sequestration and mycobacterial biodegradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in soil. Chemosphere 52:1717–1726

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bogolte BT, Ehlers GAC (2007) Estimation of PAH bioavailability to Lepidium sativum using sequential supercritical fluid extraction—a case study with industrial contaminated soils. Eur J Soil Sci 43:242–250

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Chung N, Alexander M (2002) Effect of soil properties on bioavailability and extractability of phenanthrene and atrazine sequestered in soil. Chemosphere 48:108–115

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cuypers C, Pancras T, Grotenhuis T, Rulkens W (2002) The estimation of PAH bioavailability in contaminated sediments using hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin and triton X-100 extraction techniques. Chemosphere 46:1235–1245

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Dec J, Haider K, Rangaswamy V (1997) Formation of soil-bound residues of cyprodinil and their plant uptake. J Agric Food Chem 45:514–520

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Derudi M, Venturini G, Lombardi G (2007) Biodegradation combined with ozone for the remediation of contaminated soils. Eur J Soil Biol 43:297–303

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Fernández-Luqueño F, Marsch R, Espinosa-Victoria D (2008) Remediation of PAHs in a saline–alkaline soil amended with wastewater sludge and the effect on dynamics of C and N. Sci Total Environ 402:18–28

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Führ F, Mittelstaedt W (1980) Plant experiment on the bioavailability of un-extracted carbonyl-14C methabenzthiazuron residues from soil. J Agric Food Chem 28:122–125

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gao YZ, Ling WT (2006) Comparison for plant uptake of phenanthrene and pyrene from soil and water. Biol Fertil Soils 42:387–394

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Gao YZ, Zhu LZ (2004) Plant uptake, accumulation and translocation of phenanthrene and pyrene in soils. Chemosphere 55:1169–1178

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Gao YZ, Zhu LZ, Ling WT (2005) Application of the partition-limited model for plant uptake of organic chemicals from soil and water. Sci Total Environ 336:171–182

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Gao YZ, Ling WT, Wong MH (2006) Plant-accelerated dissipation of phenanthrene and pyrene from water in the presence of a nonionic-surfactant. Chemosphere 63:1560–1567

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Gao YZ, Xiong W, Ling WT, Wang XR, Li QL (2007) Impact of exotic and inherent dissolved organic matter on phenanthrene sorption by soils. J Hazard Mater 140:138–144

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Gao YZ, Zeng YC, Shen Q, Ling WT, Han J (2009) Fractionation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon residues in soils. J Hazard Mater 172:897–903

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Gunasekara AS, Simpson MJ, Xing B (2003) Identification and characterization of sorption domains in soil organic matter using structurally modified humic acid. Environ Sci Technol 37:852–858

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Hatzinger PB, Alexander M (1995) Effect of aging of chemicals in soil on their biodegradability and extractability. Environ Sci Technol 29:537–545

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Heemken OP, Theobald N, Wenclawiak BW (1997) Comparison of ASE and SFE with soxhlet, sonication and methanolic saponification extractions for the determination of organic micropollutants in marine particulate matter. Anal Chem 69:2171–2180

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Horinouchi M, Nishio Y, Shimpo E (2000) Removal of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from oil-contaminated Kuwaiti soil. Biotechnol Lett 22:687–691

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Hund-Rinke K, Simon M (2008) Bioavailability assessment of contaminants in soils via respiration and nitrification tests. Environ Pollut 153:468–475

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson DL, Jones KC, Langdon CJ, Piearce TG, Semple KT (2002) Temporal changes in earthworm availability and extractability of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in soil. Soil Biol Biochem 34:1363–1370

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Kastner M, Breuer-Jammali M, Mahro B (1998) Impact of inoculation protocols, salinity and pH on the degradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and survival of PAH-degrading bacteria introduced into soil. Appl Environ Microbiol 64:359–362

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Leahy JG, Colwell RR (1990) Microbial degradation of hydrocarbons in the environment. Microbiol Rev 54:305–315

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Lesan HM, Bhandari A (2004) Contact-time-dependent atrazine residue formation in surface soils. Water Res 38:4435–4445

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ling WT, Ren LL, Gao YZ, Zhu XZ, Sun BQ (2009) Impact of low-molecular-weight organic acids on the availability of phenanthrene and pyrene in soil. Soil Biol Biochem 41:2187–2195

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Liste HH, Alexander M (2002) Butanol extraction to predict bioavailability of PAHs in soil. Chemosphere 46:1011–1017

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Loiseau L, Barriuso E (2002) Characterization of the atrazine's bound (non-extractable) residues using fractionation techniques for soil organic matter. Environ Sci Technol 36:683–689

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Macleod CJA, Semple KT (2003) Sequential extraction of low concentrations of pyrene and formation of non-extractable residues in sterile and non-sterile soils. Soil Biol Biochem 35:1443–1450

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Mckeague JA (1978) A manual of soil sampling and methods of analysis. Canadian Society of Soil Science, Ottawa

    Google Scholar 

  • Nam K, Chung N, Alexander M (1998) Relationship between organic matter content of soil and the sequestration of phenanthrene. Environ Sci Technol 32:3785–3788

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Noordkamp ER, Grotenhuis JTC, Rulkens WH (1997) Selection of an efficient extraction method for the determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in contaminated soil and sediment. Chemosphere 35:1907–1917

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Pignatello JJ, Xing B (1996) Mechanisms of slow sorption of organic chemicals to natural particles. Environ Sci Technol 30:1–11

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ramírez ME, Zapién B, Zegarra HG (2009) Assessment of hydrocarbon biodegradability in clayed and weathered polluted soils. Int Biodeterior Biodegrad 63:347–353

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Reid BJ, Stokes JD, Jones KC, Semple KT (2000) Nonexhaustive cyclodextrin-based extraction technique for the evaluation of PAH bioavailability. Environ Sci Technol 34:3174–3179

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Richnow HH, Annweiler E, Koning M, Lüth JC, Stegmann R, Garms C, Francke W, Michaelis W (2000) Tracing the transformation of labelled [1-13C] phenanthrene in a soil bioreactor. Environ Pollut 108:91–101

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Sabate J, Vinas M, Solanas AM (2006) Bioavailability assessment and environmental fate of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in biostimulated creosote-contaminated soil. Chemosphere 63:1648–1659

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Saison C, Perrin-Ganier C, Amellal S, Morel J, Schiavon M (2004) Effect of metals on the adsorption and extractability of 14C-phenanthrene in soils. Chemosphere 55:477–485

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Semple KT, Morriss AWJ, Paton GI (2003) Bioavailability of hydrophobic organic contaminants in soils: fundamental concepts and techniques for analysis. Eur J Soil Sci 54:809–818

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Shieh WJ, Hedges AR (1996) Properties and applications of cyclodextrins. J Macromol Sci Pure Appl Chem A33(5):673–683

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Singleton I (1994) Microbial-metabolism of xenobiotics: fundamental and applied research. J Chem Technol Biotechnol 59:9–23

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Smith MJ, Lethbridge G, Burns RG (1999) Fate of phenanthrene, pyrene and benzo[a]pyrene during biodegradation of crude oil added to two soils. FEMS Microbiol Lett 173:445–452

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Swindell AL, Reid BJ (2006) Comparison of selected non-exhaustive extraction techniques to assess PAH availability in dissimilar soils. Chemosphere 62:1126–1134

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Tang JX, Liste HH, Alexander M (2002) Chemical assays of availability to earthworms of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in soil. Chemosphere 48:35–42

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Tao YQ, Zhang SZ, Wang ZJ (2008) Biomimetic accumulation of PAHs from soils by triolein-embedded cellulose acetate membranes (TECAMs) to estimate their bioavailability. Water Res 42:754–762

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Trapido M (1999) Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in Estonian soil: contamination and profiles. Environ Pollut 105:67–74

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson SC, Jones KC (1993) Bioremediation of soil contaminated with polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs): a review. Environ Pollut 81:229–249

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Xu R, Jeffrey PO (2004) Biodegradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in oil-contaminated beach sediments treated with nutrient amendments. J Environ Qual 33:861–867

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Yaws CL (1999) Chemical properties handbook. McGraw-Hill Book Co., pp 340–389

  • Yuan SY, Wei SH, Chang BV (2000) Biodegradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by a mixed culture. Chemosphere 41:1462–1468

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhu LZ, Gao YZ (2004) Prediction of phenanthrene uptake by plants with a partition-limited model. Environ Pollut 131:505–508

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (40971137, 40701073), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK2009315), the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-06-0491), and the International Foundation for Science (C/4568-1).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Resource and Environmental Sciences, Nanjing Agricultural University, Weigang Road 1, Nanjing, 210095, People’s Republic of China

    Wanting Ling, Yuechun Zeng, Yanzheng Gao, Hongjiao Dang & Xuezhu Zhu

Authors
  1. Wanting Ling
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Yuechun Zeng
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Yanzheng Gao
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Hongjiao Dang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Xuezhu Zhu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yanzheng Gao.

Additional information

Responsible editor: Jianming Xu

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Ling, W., Zeng, Y., Gao, Y. et al. Availability of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in aging soils. J Soils Sediments 10, 799–807 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-010-0187-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-010-0187-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation