Division of Soil and Land Resources, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844-2339, USA.
Sci Total Environ. 2011 Jan 1;409(3):588-94. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2010.10.038. Epub 2010 Nov 19.
Charcoal is well known to accumulate contaminants, but its association with metals and other toxic elements in natural settings has not been well studied. Association of contaminants with charcoal in soil and sediment may affect their mobility, bioavailability, and fate in the environment. In this paper, natural wildfire charcoal samples collected from a wetland site that has been heavily contaminated by mine waste were analyzed for elemental contents and compared to the surrounding soil. Results showed that the charcoal particles were enriched over the host soils by factors of two to 40 times in all contaminant elements analyzed. Principal component analysis was carried out on the data to determine whether element enrichment patterns in the soil profile charcoal are related to those in the soils. The results suggest that manganese and zinc concentrations in charcoal are controlled by geochemical processes in the surrounding soil, whereas the concentrations of arsenic, lead, zinc, iron, phosphorus, and sulfur in charcoal are unrelated to those in the surrounding soil. This study shows evidence that charcoal in soils can have a distinct and important role in controlling contaminant speciation and fate in the environment.
木炭众所周知会吸附污染物，但在自然环境中，其与金属和其他有毒元素的关联尚未得到充分研究。污染物与土壤和沉积物中的木炭的关联可能会影响它们在环境中的迁移性、生物可利用性和归宿。本文分析了从湿地中采集的天然野火木炭样本，该湿地受到了矿山废弃物的严重污染，并将其与周围土壤进行了比较。结果表明，在所分析的所有污染物元素中，木炭颗粒相对于母体土壤富集了 2 到 40 倍。对数据进行了主成分分析，以确定土壤剖面中木炭的元素富集模式是否与土壤中的模式有关。结果表明，锰和锌在木炭中的浓度受周围土壤地球化学过程的控制，而砷、铅、锌、铁、磷和硫在木炭中的浓度与周围土壤中的浓度无关。本研究表明，土壤中的木炭在控制环境中污染物形态和归宿方面可能具有独特而重要的作用。
