Simultaneous control of soil erosion and arsenic leaching at disturbed land using polyacrylamide modified magnetite nanoparticles.

Rapid urbanization and human disturbance of land often results in serious soil erosion and releases of fine sediments and soil-bound toxic metals/metalloids. Yet, technologies for simultaneously controlling soil erosion and metals/metalloids leaching have been lacking. This study developed a new class of polyacrylamide-dispersed magnetite (PAM-MAG) nanoparticles and tested the effectiveness for simultaneous control of soil erosion and arsenic leaching from a model soil. Two parallel box test setups (L × W × H: 91.4 × 30.5 × 7.6 cm) were constructed to test the releases of sediments and soluble pollutants from the surface soil under simulated rainfall conditions (intensity = 11.15 cm/hr). A sandy loam soil from a local quarry mining site was used as the model soil, and arsenate As(V) as a prototype leachable metalloid. A stable dispersion of PAM-MAG was prepared with 0.3 wt% of PAM and 0.1 g/L as Fe of magnetite. The results indicated that treating the soil with 5.985 g/m2 of PAM-MAG was able to decrease cumulative soil mass loss in the runoff by 90.8% (from 254.50 ± 0.10 g to 23.35 ± 3.19 g), or turbidity of the runoff by 79.9% (from 244.5 ± 27.5 NTU to 49.2 ± 22.5 NTU). Compared to PAM only, the PAM-MAG suspension showed a 30% reduction of viscosity, allowing for easier application and transport of the nanoparticles in soil. Concurrently, the PAM-MAG treatment also immobilized 82.5% of water-leachable arsenate compared to untreated controls. Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy analyses revealed that arsenate was immobilized by magnetite nanoparticles through inner sphere surface complexation (Fe-O-As). Overall, the PAM-MAG based technology holds the promise for simultaneously controlling soil erosion and metal/metalloid releases from disturbed land.