Cadmium Immobilization in Soil using Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate Stabilized Magnetite Nanoparticles

Introduction Some methods of contaminated soils remediation reduces the mobile fraction of trace elements, which could contaminate groundwater or be taken up by soil organisms. Cadmium (Cd) as a heavy metal has received much attention in the past few decades due to its potential toxic impact on soil organism activity and compositions. Cadmium is a soil pollutant of no known essential biological functions, and may pose threats to soil-dwelling organisms and human health. Soil contamination with Cd usually originates from mining and smelting activities, atmospheric deposition from metallurgical industries, incineration of plastics and batteries, land application of sewage sludge, and burning of fossil fuels. Heavy metal immobilization using amendments is a simple and rapid method for the reduction of heavy metal pollution. One way of the assessment of contaminated soils is sequential extraction procedure. Sequential extraction of heavy metals in soils is an appropriate way to determine soil metal forms including soluble, exchangeable, carbonate, oxides of iron and manganese, and the residual. Its results are valuable in prediction of bioavailability, leaching rate and elements transformation in contaminated agricultural soils.
Materials and Methods The objective of this study was to synthesize magnetite nanoparticles (Fe3O4) stabilized with sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and to investigate the effect of its different percentages (0, 1, 2.5, 5, and 10%) on the different fractions of cadmium in soil by sequential extraction method. The nanoparticles were synthesized following the protocol described by Si et al. (19). The investigations were carried out with a loamy sand topsoil. Before use, the soil was air-dried, homogenized and sieved (