Can synchrotron micro-X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy be used to map the distribution of cadmium in soil particles?
Paul J. Milham A B E , Timothy E. Payne C , Barry Lai D , Rachael L. Trautman C , Zhonghou Cai D , Paul Holford B , Anthony M. Haigh B and Jann P. Conroy BA NSW Department of Primary Industries, LB 4, Richmond, NSW 2753, Australia.
B Centre for Plant and Food Science, University of Western Sydney, LB 1797, Penrith South DC, NSW 1797, Australia.
C Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, Menai, NSW 2234, Australia.
D Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 S Cass Avenue, Argonne, IL 60439, USA.
E Corresponding author. Email: paul.milham@dpi.nsw.gov.au
Australian Journal of Soil Research 45(8) 624-628 https://doi.org/10.1071/SR06179
Submitted: 21 December 2006 Accepted: 30 October 2007 Published: 7 December 2007
Abstract
Plants take up cadmium (Cd) from the soil, and the concentration of Cd in some plant products is a health concern. Plant uptake of Cd is poorly predicted by its concentration in soils; consequently, there is interest in the binding and distribution of Cd in soil. Synchrotron micro-X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (micro-XRFS) is the most sensitive method of observing this distribution. We used beam-line 2-ID-D of the Advanced Photon Source (APS), Argonne, to test whether this technique could map the Cd distribution in 5 soils from Greater Sydney that contained 0.3–6.4 mg Cd/kg. A subsample of one soil was spiked to contain ~100 mg Cd/kg. Cadmium was readily mapped in the Cd-enriched subsample, whereas in the unamended soils, only one Cd-rich particle was found; that is, sensitivity generally limited Cd mapping. We also examined a sample of Nauru phosphorite, which was a primary source of much of the Cd in farm soils on the peri-urban fringe of Greater Sydney. The phosphorite contained ~100 mg Cd/kg and the Cd was relatively uniformly distributed, supporting the findings of an earlier study on an apatite from Africa. The micro-XRFS at beam-line 2-ID-D of the APS can be reconfigured to increase the sensitivity at least 10-fold, which may allow the distribution of Cd and its elemental associations to be mapped in particles of most agricultural soils and facilitate other spectroscopic investigations.
Additional keywords: iron, copper, zinc, potassium, lead.
Acknowledgments
This work was undertaken with financial support from the Australian Synchrotron Research Program, which is funded by the Commonwealth of Australia under the Major National Research Facilities Program. Use of the Advanced Photon Source was supported by the USA Department of Energy, Basic Energy Sciences, Office of Science, under contract No. W-31-109-Eng-38. We thank Arthur Day and Graeme Smith for preparing the grain mounts, Peter Holmes and Gary Kuhn (Incitec-Pivot Pty Ltd) for the sample of phosphorite from Nauru, and David Harland for input to the text.
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