• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.326-329
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• 2007

Quantifying soil organic carbon (SOC) has long been considered to improve our understanding of soil productivity, soil carbon dynamics, and soil quality. And also SOC could contribute as a major soil management factor for prescribing fertilizers and controlling of soil erosion and runoff. Reducing tillage intensity has been recommended to sequester SOC into soil. On the other hand, determination of traditional SOC could barely identify the tillage practices effect. Physical soil fractionation has been reported to improve interpretation of soil tillage practices impact on SOC dynamics. However, most of these researches were focused onupland soils and few researches were conducted on paddy soils. Therefore, the objective of this research was to evaluate paddy soil tillage impact on SOC by physical soil fractionation. Soils were sampled in conventional-tillage (CT), partial-tillage (PT), no-tillage (NT), and shallow-tillage (ST)plots at the National Institute of Crop Science research farm. Samples were obtained at the three sampling depth with 7.5-cm increment from the surface and were sieved with 0.25- and 0.053-mm screen. Soil organic carbon was determined by wet combustion method. Significant difference of SOC contentwas found among sampling soil depth and soil particle size. SOC content tended to increase at the ST plot with increasing size of soil particle fraction. We conclude that quantifying soil organic carbon by physical soil particle fractionation could improve understanding of SOC dynamics by soil tillage practices.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.9-19
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• 2021

This study evaluated the feasibility of combined use of physical separation and soil washing to remediate heavy metals (Pb and Cu) contaminated soil in a military shooting range. The soils were classified into two types based on the level of heavy metal concentrations: a higher contaminated soil (HCS) with Pb and Cu concentrations of 6,243 mg/kg and 407 mg/kg, respectively, and a lower contaminated soil (LCS) with their concentrations of 1,658 mg/kg and 232 mg/kg. Pb level in both soils exceeded the regulatory limit (700 mg/kg), and its concentration generally increased with decreasing soil particle size. However, in some cases, Pb concentrations increased with increasing soil particle size, presumably due to the presence of residues of bullets in the soil matrix. As a pretreatment step, a shaking table was used for physical separation of soil to remove bullet residues while fractionating the contaminated soils into different sizes. The most effective separation and fractionation were achieved at vibration velocity of 296 rpm/min, the table slope of 7.0°, and the separating water flow rate of 23 L/min. The efficiency of ensuing soil washing process for LCS was maximized by using 0.5% HCl with the soil:washing solution mixing ratio of 1:3 for 1 hr treatment. On the contrary, HCS was most effectively remediated by using 1.0% HCl with the same soil:solution mixing ratio for 3 hr. This work demonstrated that the combined use of physical separation and soil washing could be a viable option to remediate soils highly contaminated with heavy metals.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.75-81
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• 2009

A flow and sedimentation field-flow fractionation method has been used to characterize colloidal particles in environmental samples. The opposed flow sample concentration (OFSC) method was employed. The OFSC procedure was optimized for the analysis of particles in ground water with respect to various experimental parameters including sample introduction time, flow rates, etc. The effectiveness in low concentration and characterization of the OFSC-FlFFF was demonstrated with GW-1 and GW-2 ground water samples. Ground water of upto 100 mL has been successfully loaded, concentrated, and characterized by OFSC-FlFFF. The OFSC technique allow the application of FlFFF possible for the separation and characterization of colloidal particles in very low concentrations. The results show FFF provides a simplified alternative to existing off-line concentration procedures, and shows a high potential for the applications to the analysis of dilute colloidal particles in the environmental samples.