Abstract: (23077 Views)
Increasing soil contamination by chemicals has become an issue of increasing environmental concern. Leaching of chemicals into and through the vadose zone creats serious problems due to the contamination of the soil matrix, soil solution and groundwater. Therefore, in order to study the effect of the preferential flow, macropores and organic matter on mobility and leaching of the metals such as cadmium lead, and zinc, an experiment was conducted as a factorial-split plot based on the completely randomized design with three replications. Three treatments of the undisturbed soil (U), the disturbed soil (D) and the disturbed soil containing 3 percent organic matter (O) were leached by the solutions with the concentration of 20 mg.L-1 of Cd, Pb, and Zn for a month. Then the concentrations of Cd, Pb and Zn in the leachate were measured at different time intervals. The ANOVA results indicated that the metals had a significant difference in the leachate at 1% and the order of their mobility was: Zn>Pb>Cd. Also, there was a significant difference between different soil treatments at 1% and the concentration of the three metals in U and O treatments was more than their concentrations in D treatment. Furthermore, a significant difference between the time intervals of leaching (pore volumes) was observed at 1%. So that, Cd in leachate of U, O and D treatments indicated a significant difference after leaching for 3, 3 and 5 days, respectively (1%). But, Pb in the leachate of the three soil treatments after leaching for 11 days had a significant difference. Zn concentration only in O treatment had a clear trend at different time intervals of leaching and a significant difference was observed after leaching for 8 days.
Type of Study:
Research |
Subject:
Ggeneral Received: 2008/01/9 | Published: 2005/07/15