Abstract Understanding metal plant availability as influenced by soil conditions is of key importance for phytoremediation research and for quantification of environmental risk assessment in polluted areas. Urtica dioica L. was chosen as study object as it is omnipresent in the temperate climate region and in the area under study in particular. The study area stretched over 630 km2 in Flanders,...

General guidelines to reclaim saline or sodic soils do not adequately consider variables such as pH and the presence of organic matter that are known to affect soil stability. Poor structural stability of sodic, saline-sodic, and high-pH soils adversely influences crop yields; promotes piping, tunneling, and slope erosion; and can accelerate the failure of water conveyance systems. We evaluated...

in this study the environmental problems has been studied in south east of tehran (bibi shahrbanou mount). 31 sediment samples were taken from 10-15 cm extremity of streams and were analyzed by icp. toxic elements studied include: ag, as, cd, cr, cu, ni, pb, sb and zn. the samples were also investigated for mineralogy using xrd. the clay mineral assemblage encountered in the analyzed samples is...

An improved particle swarm optimization (IPSO) was proposed and the intelligent algorithms such as IPSO, genetic algorithm (GA), and simulated annealing algorithm (SA) were introduced to determine parameters of Van Genuchten (VG) model for soil water retention curve (SWRC) of four typical agricultural soil textures (clay, clay loam, silt loam and sand loam) in China. For comparison, the SWRC in...

Lime stabilization is one of the techniques that can be used for improving the engineering properties, particularly the strength, of soft clays. This paper aims to investigate the effect of hydrated lime on the strength and microstructure of lime treated clays. In order to illustrate such effect, a series of laboratory tests were conducted. Atterberg limits, compaction tests, unconfined compres...

This study was conducted to analyze the properties of deposit soil dredged from a reservoir which was processed for efficient treatment and management. Before starting this study, the physicochemical properties and the heavy metal content of the deposit soil were investigated to collect the fundamental data. In a treatment experiment proposed to use the deposit soil, the deposit soli was separa...

This paper performs molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the role of the monovalent cations K, Na and the divalent cation Ca on the stability and swelling of montmorillonite. The recently developed CLAYFF force field is used to predict the basal spacing as a function of the water content in the interlayer. The simulations reproduced the swelling pattern of these montmorillonites, sugge...

The Essen site has been chosen as an alternative site for nuclear waste disposal in Belgium. The soil formation involved at this site is the same as at Mol site: Boom clay. However, owing to its geographical situation closer to the sea, Boom clay at Essen presents a pore water salinity 4-5 times higher than Boom clay at Mol. This study aims at studying the effects of pore water salinity on the ...

Supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) treatments of a montmorillonite (MMT) intercalated with ammonium cations bearing two long hydrocarbon tails (organo-modified MMT, OMMT) led to OMMT exfoliation, with loss of the long-range order in the packing of the hydrocarbon tails and maintenance of the long-range order in the clay layers. The intercalated and the derived exfoliated OMMT have been deeply...

In this study, natural bentonite was used as natural clay material and samples were taken from the Kalecik district in Ankara. In this research, bentonite is the subject of an analysis from standpoint of assessing the basic properties of engineered barriers with respect to the buffer material. Bentonite and sand mixtures were prepared for tests. Some of clay minerals give relatively higher hydr...