Characterization of soluble organic compounds and complexation of copper, nickel, and zinc in extracts of sludge-amended soils

Journal Article · · J. Environ. Qual.; (United States)

OSTI ID:5641626

Dudley, L M; McNeal, B L; Baham, J E; Coray, C S; Cheng, H H

An anaerobically digested, municipal sewage sludge was mixed with an acid and a neutral soil and incubated for periods of up to 30 weeks at 25 +/- 2/sup 0/C and approximately -33 kPa water potential. Aliquots from saturation pastes were passed through a Sephadex/sup TM/ G-15 gel filtration column and the fractions analyzed for total soluble C, Cu, Ni, and Zn. Infrared spectra were recorded for fractions containing a soluble-C or metal-concentration maximum. The relative strength of adsorption bands in the IR spectra, which were diagnostic for polysaccharides, proteins, and amino acids, declined over the study period. The dominant spectral features for extracts of sludge-soil mixtures incubated 4 weeks or longer were diagnostic bands for aromatic and aliphatic carboxylic acids. At least squares (L/sup 2/) approximation to proton titration curves was used to select a subset of ligands, which provided the smallest error term. The set of ligands from which the subset was selected was acetate, citrate, maleate, phthalate, salicylate, arginine, lysine, ornithine, and valine. Total soluble concentrations of Ca, Cu, Ni, Zn, Cl, NH/sub 3/, PO/sub 4/ and organic ligands, and pH and P/sub CO2/ values, were used to calculate ion speciation in the extracts via the computer program GEOCHEM. Values for the fractions of total soluble Cu, Ni, and Zn bound by soluble organic matter as predicted by GEOCHEM agreed with values determined by gel separation.

• Research Organization: Washington State Univ., Pullman
• OSTI ID: 5641626
• Journal Information: J. Environ. Qual.; (United States), Vol. 16:4
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
COPPER
ECOLOGICAL CONCENTRATION
G CODES
NICKEL
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
SOILS
CONTAMINATION
ZINC
FILTRATION
INFRARED SPECTRA
LEAST SQUARE FIT
MUNICIPAL WASTES
SEWAGE SLUDGE
COMPUTER CODES
ELEMENTS
MAXIMUM-LIKELIHOOD FIT
METALS
NUMERICAL SOLUTION
SEPARATION PROCESSES
SEWAGE
SLUDGES
SPECTRA
TRANSITION ELEMENTS
WASTES
510200* - Environment
Terrestrial- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport- (-1989)