Abstract
The increasing use of tungsten in the production of green energy in the aerospace and military industries, and in many other hi-tech applications, may increase the content of this element in soil. This overview examines some aspects of the behavior of tungsten in soil, such as the importance of characteristics of soils in relation to bioavailability processes, the chemical approaches to evaluate tungsten mobility in the soil environment and the importance of adsorption and desorption processes. Tungsten behavior depends on soil properties of which the most important is soil pH, which determines the solubility and polymerization of tungstate ions and the characteristics of the adsorbing soil surfaces. During the adsorption and desorption of tungsten, iron, and aluminum oxides, and hydroxides play a key role as they are the most important adsorbing surfaces for tungsten. The behavior of tungsten compounds in the soil determines the transfer of this element in plants and therefore in the food chain. Despite the growing importance of tungsten in everyday life, environmental regulations concerning soil do not take this element into consideration. The purpose of this review is also to provide some basic information that could be useful when considering tungsten in environmental legislation.
Highlights
Tungsten (W) occurs naturally in soils and the Earth’s crust is the most important source of this element
Some sporadic studies reported that tungsten could be solubilized under particular conditions of pH and redox potential [5,6,7,8,9,10], the lack of adequate analytical techniques at that time meant that tungsten was merely cited as being similar to molybdenum, but without its essential properties being thoroughly investigated
Given the characteristics of the soils, the results from this model confirm that the uptake by plants increased from acidic soil to alkaline soils; Histosol, Vertisol, and Fluvisol. This increase is due to the action of the alkaline pH of soil, which promoted the desorption of tungsten from soil surfaces and its release in soil solution where the metal is bioavailable for plant uptake [55]
Summary
Tungsten (W) occurs naturally in soils and the Earth’s crust is the most important source of this element. The behavior of tungsten in the soil did not receive particular scientific interest. This stemmed from the belief that tungsten was substantially inert in the environment and relatively insoluble [3,4]. The USEPA has included tungsten compounds in the National Priorities List [19] with particular consideration to poly-tungstates. This overview briefly describes some aspects of the retention, mobility, and bioavailability of tungsten in soils. Environments 2021, 8, 66 environmental problems may arise, which, only a few years ago, were completely un of 15 thinkable
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