Biochar amendment effectively reduces the transport of 3,5,6-trichloro-2-pyridinol (a main degradation product of chlorpyrifos) in purple soil: Experimental and modeling.

Abstract

This study investigates biochar amendment effectively reduces the transport of polar pollutant 3,5,6-trichloro-2-pyridinol, TCP, a main degradation product of chlorpyrifos, and quantitatively explores the physical and chemical mechanisms through inversion simulation. Thus, five biochar addition rates to soil, 0.0%, 0.5%, 1.0%, 2.5% and 5.0%, are tested and compared. The adsorption isotherms experiment, breakthrough curves, BTCs, in both repacked and undisturbed soil columns are also compared. And finally the non-equilibrium convection-diffusion equation, CDE, is used to uncover the change of hydraulic properties of soil and mass non-equilibrium of TCP in the soils mixed with different contents of biochar. The results show that the addition of biochar can reduce the transportation of TCP significantly in the purple soil with macro pores, and the reduction is mainly attributed to two aspects: increase of adsorption ability and decrease of diffusion coefficient and convection velocity. The former is reflected by the linear increase of Kd value with the increase of biochar addition rate and soil organic matter content. The latter is demonstrated by the dramatic reduction of TCP concentration in outflow of BTC experiment and the delayed leaching time. The inversely simulated results also reveal that the diffusion coefficient decrease from 5.35 to 3.95 when biochar addition rate increases from 0 to 5%. Compared with the repacked soil columns, the preferential flow does not disappear in the undisturbed soil columns, accompanied by a higher maximum concentration, an earlier equilibrium time and a less residual amount.