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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Soil Processes
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1420705
This article is part of the Research Topic By-product Amendments for the Remediation of Metal- and Metalloid-contaminated Soils View all 7 articles

Remediation Quantum of Organic Amendments to Immobilize Potentially Toxic Heavy Metals in Wastewater Contaminated Soils through Maize Cultivation

Provisionally accepted
Muhammad Zeeshan Manzoor Muhammad Zeeshan Manzoor 1Ghulam Sarwar Ghulam Sarwar 1Muhammad Ibrahim Muhammad Ibrahim 2Afroz Rais Afroz Rais 3Safia Gul Safia Gul 3Zuhair Hasnain Zuhair Hasnain 4Shahbaz Khan Shahbaz Khan 5*
  • 1 University of Sargodha, Sargodha, Punjab, Pakistan
  • 2 Government College University, Faisalabad, Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan
  • 3 Sardar Bahadur Khan Women's University, Quetta, Balochistan, Pakistan
  • 4 Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi, Punjab, Pakistan
  • 5 Colorado State University, Fort Collins, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Wastewater is considered a good reservoir of mineral elements that can be used for agriculture, aquaculture, and some other activities after adopting suitable measures. The gap between supply and demand for water is increasing exponentially because of an abrupt boost in the world population. It is time to refocus attention on a kind of circulating water by reusing municipal wastewater for agricultural purposes, particularly irrigation. The recycled or treated water would be used as an alternative to fresh water. In a current study, the impact of various organic amendments was studied to mitigate the toxic effects of pollutants present in wastewater by cultivating maize as a test crop. In this experiment, treatments included T1 (Treatment 1) = control (wastewater polluted soil without application of any amendment), T2 = farmyard manure (FYM) at 2.5 tons ha -1 (hectare -1 ), T3 = FYM at 5.0 tons ha -1 , T4 = compost at 2.5 tons ha -1 and T5 = compost at 5.0 tons ha -1 . Application of FYM at 5.0 tons ha -1 (T3) was recorded as most effective, as maximum improvement was observed in soil characteristics pH, electrical conductivity (EC), sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), and organic matter. Treatment T3 remained most superior in reducing the concentration of heavy metals in soil, for example, lead, cadmium, nickel, and arsenic for T3 were 8.64, 1.34, 10.44, and 2.25 mg kg -1 (milligram per kg), respectively. Maximum fresh biomass (fodder yield) of 9.98 tons ha -1 was harvested when FYM was applied at 5.0 tons ha -1 to the soil as compared to 6.2 tons ha -1 from the control plot. The highest contents of nitrogen (1.20%), phosphorus (0.41%) and potassium (3.97%) were observed in maize plants for T3. In maize plants T3, the concentration of lead, cadmium, nickel, and arsenic was reduced to the levels of 1.92, 0.23, 2.28, and 1.25 mg kg -1 respectively. Therefore, it can be concluded from the findings of the experiment that the application of FYM significantly reduced heavy metal concentrations and improved soil health, along with maize crop growth and productivity.

    Keywords: Arsenic, Cadmium, Compost, FYM, Lead, Nickel, Polluted water

    Received: 21 Apr 2024; Accepted: 17 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Zeeshan Manzoor, Sarwar, Ibrahim, Rais, Gul, Hasnain and Khan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Shahbaz Khan, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, United States

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