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Diffusely contaminated soils often remain untreated as classical remediation approaches would be disproportionately expensive. Adding compost can accelerate the biodegradation of organic contaminants and adding biochar can immobilize contaminants through sorption. The combined use of compost and biochar to reduce polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) and NSO-substituted PAH contamination has, however, not previously been systematically investigated. We have therefore investigated the processes involved (i) through sorption batch experiments, (ii) by monitoring changes in bacterial, fungal and archaeal communities using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis, and (iii) through degradation experiments with fluorene, phenanthrene, pyrene, carbazole, dibenzothiophene, and dibenzofuran. Sorption coefficients for organic contaminants in soils increased tenfold following 10% compost addition and up to a hundredfold with further addition of 5% biochar. The rate of PAH and NSO-PAH degradation increased up to twofold following compost addition despite increased sorption, probably due to the introduction of additional microbial species into the autochthonous soil communities. In contrast, degradation of PAHs and NSO-PAHs in soil-compost-biochar mixtures slowed down up to tenfold due to the additional sorption, although some degradation still occurred. The combined use of biochar and compost may therefore provide a strategy for immobilizing PAHs and NSO-PAHs and facilitating degradation of remaining accessible contaminant fractions., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The influence of ageing on biochar properties has been investigated by comparing three fresh biochars with biochars artificially aged by either H 2 O 2 thermal oxidation or horseradish peroxidase enzymatic oxidation. In addition, a field-aged counterpart for one of the biochars was recovered from an agricultural field site, four years after application. Biochar properties, including surface areas and pore volumes (derived by N 2 and CO 2 physisorption) and elemental compositions, showed only minor changes following both artificial and field ageing, indicating high biochar stability. Concentrations of the 16 US EPA PAHs were measured in all of the biochars and a contaminant trap was used to investigate the effect of ageing on their bioaccessibility. The concentrations of total and bioaccessible PAHs ranged from 4.4 to 22.6 mg kg -1 and 0.0 to 9.7 mg kg -1 , respectively. Concentrations of the 16 US EPA PAHs decreased following field ageing, but the proportion of low molecular weight PAHs increased. The observed changes in PAH composition with field ageing can be explained by uptake from the surrounding soil and intra-biochar transfer processes. To better understand changes in PAH composition with ageing, an additional broad range of alkylated PAHs was also analyzed in selected samples. Our results show that the tested artificial ageing protocols are unable to approximate the changes in PAH composition resulting from field ageing. Nevertheless, total and bioaccessible PAH concentrations decreased for both artificially and field-aged biochars, indicating that biochars release PAHs when they are freshly produced and that the risk of PAH release decreases with ageing.

Surface properties, dispersion state, and sorption behavior of carbon-based nanomaterials will change after being released into the environment. To study these processes, five different scenarios were considered to probe the impact of changes in surface properties of dispersed fullerenes (nC60) on their sorption potential due to irradiation and presence of oxygen. Sorption isotherms of pyrene by nC60 were determined at environmentally relevant concentrations applying a passive sampling method. Isotherms of all dispersion scenarios were best fit with the Dubinin-Ashthakov model. Sorption was strongest for nC60 kept under anoxic condition. Both the presence of oxygen and irradiation significantly decreased the sorption capacity of nC60, while commercially available polyhydroxy fullerenes had the smallest sorption. In addition, competition for sorption sites was never observed in multiple sorbate experiments with four polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons at small concentration. A strong relationship between sorption coefficients and hydrophobic properties of sorbates suggests that hydrophobic interactions are of major importance. The results emphasize that aging of released fullerenes results in a reduced strength of interactions with nonpolar compounds and, thus, reduces the impact on the environmental transport of hydrophobic pollutants.

Understanding the interactions between organic contaminants and carbon nanomaterials is essential for evaluating the materials' potential environmental impact and their application as sorbent. Although a great deal of work has been published in the past years, data are still limited in terms of compounds, concentrations, and conditions investigated. We applied a passive sampling method employing polyoxymethylene (POM-SPE) to gain a better understanding of the interactions between polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and multiwalled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) over a 6 orders of magnitude wide concentration range. In the low-concentration range (pg-ng L(-1)), sorption of phenanthrene and pyrene was linear on a nonlogarithmic scale. Here, sorption could thus be described using a single sorption coefficient. Isotherm fits over the entire concentration range showed that (i) monolayer sorption models described the data very well, and (ii) the CNTs sorption capacity was directly related to their surface area. Sorption coefficients for 13 PAHs (11 of which have not been reported to date) were also measured at environmentally relevant low concentrations. No competition seemed to occur in the low-concentration range and sorption affinity was directly related to the solubility of the subcooled liquid of the compounds.

Amendment with biochar and/or compost has been proposed as a strategy to remediate soil contaminated with low levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The strong sorption potential of biochar can help sequestering contaminants while the compost may promote their degradation. An improved understanding of how sorption evolves upon soil amendment is an essential step towards the implementation of the approach. The present study reports on the sorption of pyrene to two soils, four biochars and one compost. Detailed isotherm analyzes across a wide range of concentration confirmed that soil amendments can significantly increase the sorption of pyrene. Comparisons of data obtained by a classical batch and a passive sampling method suggest that dissolved organic matter did not play a significant role on the sorption of pyrene. The addition of 10% compost to soil led to a moderate increase in sorption (<2-fold), which could be well predicted based on measurements of sorption to the individual components. Hence, our result suggest that the sorption of pyrene to soil and compost can be relatively well approximated by an additive process. The addition of 5% biochar to soil (with or without compost) led to a major increase in the sorption of pyrene (2.5-4.7-fold), which was, however, much smaller than that suggested based on the sorption measured on the three individual components. Results suggest that the strong sorption to the biochar was attenuated by up to 80% in the presence of soil and compost, much likely due to surface and pore blockage. Results were very similar in the two soils considered, and collectively suggest that combined amendments with compost and biochar may be a useful approach to remediate soils with low levels of contamination. Further studies carried out in more realistic settings and over longer periods of time are the next step to evaluate the long term viability of remediation approaches based on biochar amendments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]