[Passivation of Simulated Pb-and Cd-Contaminated Soil by Applying Combined Treatment of Phosphate, Humic Acid, and Fly Ash].

In this study, three kinds of amendments including superphosphate, humic acid, and fly ash and their complex combination were adopted to passivate the artificially simulated Pb-and Cd-containing soils. The passivation efficiency evaluation was performed via the CaCl and triethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA) extraction method as well as a BCR morphological classification experiment. The microstructures and structures of the soil were explored further via X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy with X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) to elaborate the passivation mechanism. The results demonstrated that all passivation processes, excluding single humic acid addition, could reduce the CaCl and DTPA extraction contents of Pb and Cd in soils, where the optimal efficiency could be achieved by the sequential addition of superphosphate and humic acid, followed by fly ash. There was a weakly positive correlation between soil pH and CaCl/DTPA extraction content of Pb, a negative correlation between soil pH and CaCl/DTPA extraction content of Cd, and a significantly negative correlation between available phosphorous content and CaCl/DTPA extraction contents of Pb and Cd, suggesting the crucial role of available phosphorous contents to control the activities of Pb and Cd. In the presence of phosphate, humic acid, and fly ash, the Pb and Cd could convert from active weak acid extraction to low-activity residual speciation, resulting in effectively reducing Pb and Cd transferability. Throughout the XRD and SEM-EDS analyses, it was found that ion exchange was the predominant mechanism in heavy metal passivation by single superphosphate, wherein the heavy metals were transformed into an insoluble Ca-containing phosphate mixture. The dissolving/precipitation or surface adsorption could be concluded as the main mechanism in the combination of the three passivation agents that converted heavy metals to lead phosphate precipitate[(Pb(PO)] or mixed heavy metal mineral[PbFe(SO)(PO)(OH)], so as to obtain superior heavy metal passivation achievement.