Novel Methodological Approaches to the Study of Sorbents in Soils Polluted with Heavy Metals

Abstract

A rapid method for indirect assessment of heavy metal mobility based on measurements of specific electric conductivity of soil in model experiments with predefined parameters and a homogeneous medium has been proposed. A strong correlation between the specific electric conductivity values obtained by direct measurements of the soil’s electric resistance and the values obtained with an instrumental method of quantitative element analysis was established. The sorbent showed the highest efficiency towards cadmium; the degree of cadmium sorption being as high as 61.6% at a component ratio of 1 : 3 (sapropel to lime). An efficient sorbent for lead contained the same components at a 1 : 1 ratio and absorbed 14.3% of the ions, and the best ratio for zinc sorption was 1 : 5 (6.4% of ions sorbed).