Scientific article
OA Policy
English

Temperature and soil pollution affect dissolved and colloidal antimony release from flooded shooting range soils

Published inJournal of hazardous materials, vol. 496, 139369
Publication date2025-09
Abstract

Antimony (Sb) mobility in soils, whether dissolved or colloidal, is an emerging concern, yet its geochemical behavior, particularly under future climatic conditions, remains poorly understood. In a 28-day microcosm experiment, we investigated Sb release from two shooting range soils under flooded conditions at 20°C and 25°C. Sequential extractions and pore water analyses were conducted to assess Sb release at different temperatures. Sb size distribution was examined across pore water filtrates and characterized using asymmetric flow field-flow fractionation (AF4). The soils had different levels of Sb (58 ± 9 and 422 ± 53 mg kg-1 ) and Pb (2.0 ± 0.9 and 14.1 ± 3.0 g kg-1 ) pollution and microbial biomass (microbial carbon: 1005 ± 48 and 196 ± 62 mg kg-1 ), which greatly affected Sb release. Elevated temperature decreased Sb release in the less contaminated soil with higher microbial biomass (max: 85 ± 4 vs. 125 ± 3 µg L-1 ), but increased it in the more contaminated soil with lower microbial biomass (max: 492 ± 10 vs. 410 ± 11 µg L-1 ). This contrast was attributed to differences in soil microbial biomass, which impacted the effect of temperature on microbially-mediated redox processes, such as the reduction to less mobile SbIII . A substantial fraction (13-36 %) of total soil pore water Sb was released as colloids (0.02-10 µm). AF4 analysis identified two colloidal Sb populations: organic colloids or Sb microcrystals (∼2.5 nm) and mineral nanoparticles (15-20 nm). This study underscores the microbial control of redox transformations and Sb release and provides new evidence on the importance of colloidal transport of Sb.

Keywords
  • Antimony release
  • Asymmetric flow field-flow fractionation
  • Climate change
  • Dynamic redox
  • Microbial biomass
  • Shooting range
  • Soil
Citation (ISO format)
MORGENTHALER, Ursina et al. Temperature and soil pollution affect dissolved and colloidal antimony release from flooded shooting range soils. In: Journal of hazardous materials, 2025, vol. 496, p. 139369. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2025.139369
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Article (Published version)
Identifiers
Journal ISSN0304-3894
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Creation26/09/2025 18:04:17
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