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Nitrate and Detergent Recovery in Aerated Soil Columns¹

ABSTRACT

The plant nutrient, nitrate, and the surfactant, linear alkylbenzene sulfonate (LAS), were applied in solutions to the surface of aerated columns (93 cm) of layered soil. Distilled water coutaining 0.01N CaSO₄ was used to displace the nitrate and LAS through the columns while a steady water flow was maintained through the soil. The columns were water saturated at both extremities but unsaturated throughout most of the column length. Oxygen-helium mixtures containing 0.2, 5, and 20% oxygen provided three different aeration levels. Recovery of nitrate in the liquid effluent was 73, 81, and 87% of that amount originally applied to the soil surface for the respective three levels of oxygen. Recovery of LAS was 50.4, 50.0, and 48.7% of the surface application for the same oxygen levels. These recovery results show that denitrification in a flowing soil-air-water system depended upon the level of oxygen, but the oxidation of LAS was not affected by the oxygen level. Actual times allowed to insure complete displacement of nitrate and LAS from the soil columns were 16.65, 15.42, and 17.67 days, respectively, for the 0.2, 5, and 20% oxygen treatments.

¹ Journal Paper no. J-6402 of the Iowa Agr. & Home Ec. Exp. Sta., Ames, Iowa, Project no. 998. Contribution from the Dept. of Agronomy, Iowa State Univ. Work supported by Public Health Service Research Grant WP-0070-05, from the Div. of Water Supply and Pollution Control.

² Research Associate, professor of Agronomy and Physics, Iowa State Univ., Ames, and Professor of Water Science, Univ. of Calif., Davis. The senior author is now Assistant Professor of Soil Physics, Univ. of Fla., Gainesville.

Received for publication February 19, 1970. Accepted for publication July 22, 1970.