Mobility and Fate of Cerium Dioxide, Zinc Oxide, and Copper Nanoparticles in Agricultural Soil at Sequential Wetting-Drying Cycles.

Mikhail Ermolin,Olesya Katasonova,Natalia Fedyunina

doi:10.3390/ma12081270

Abstract

Study on the behavior and fate of nanofertilizers in soil plays a key role in the assessment of the efficiency of their use for intended purposes. The behavior of nanoparticles (NPs) in soil depends on environmental scenarios, such as Wetting-Drying cycles (WDCs). In the present work, the mobility and fate of CeO2, ZnO, and Cu NPs in agricultural soil at sequential WDCs have been studied. It has been shown that the mobility of CeO2 and ZnO NPs decreases after each WDC. After four WDCs the relative amount of CeO2 and ZnO NPs leached from soil decreases from 0.11 to 0.07% and from 0.21 to 0.07%, correspondingly. The decrease in the mobility of NPs is caused by their immobilization by water-stable soil aggregates, which are formed at sequential WDCs. Cu NPs are dissolved by soil solution, so their mobility (in ionic forms) increases after each subsequent WDCs. The relative content of Cu2+ sourced from Cu NPs increases up to 0.88% after four WDCs. It has been found that mineral NPs of soil can play an important role in the transport of insoluble engineered NPs. As for soluble NPs, the kinetics of their dissolution governs their mobility in ionic forms.

Highlights

The application of nanotechnologies to agriculture is regarded as promising approach to increasing crop production [1]
Engineered nanoparticles (NPs) of different chemical nature are proposed for use as nanofertilizers and nanopesticides [6]
The leaching experiments with soil without added NPs were used as control ones

Summary

Introduction

The application of nanotechnologies to agriculture is regarded as promising approach to increasing crop production [1]. An application of these “smart” nanoagrochemicals enables their excess runoff to be significantly reduced. It is known, for example, that up to 70% of conventional agrochemicals remain unused [5], go to runoff, and can have adverse effects for ecosystem. For the delivery of micronutrients, the application of metal and metal oxide NPs, such as CeO2 [10,11,12,13,14,15], ZnO [10,11,16,17,18,19,20], Zn [21], Cu [22], CuO [23], TiO2 [24,25], Au [26], etc.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion