Effects of Organic Pollutants on Soil Microbial Activity: The Influence of Sorption, Solubility, and Speciation

The Fe(III) reduction test was used to measure the toxicity of 12 organic chemicals [dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T), atrazine, picloram, 4-chlorobenzeneamine, pentachlorophenol (PCP), hexachlorobenzene (HCB), 1,1-bis-4-chlorophenyl-2,2,2-trichloroethane (DDT), trichloroethene, benzene, phenol, linear alkylbenzenesulfonate (LAS)]. The different inherent toxicity of the pollutants is strongly modified by interactions with the soils. The total amounts that cause 10, 50, and 90% inhibitions (effective doses, ED10, ED50, ED90) can be statistically related to soil parameters that control the sorption and solubility of the chemicals. Sorption experiments with 2,4-D, 2,4,5-T, PCP, and LAS confirm that the degree of sorption and the concentration in the soil solution are important for potential toxic effects. However, toxic solution concentrations of a chemical (effective concentrations, EC10, EC50, EC90) also vary considerably. For some chemicals the influence of soil pH on their speciation in the soil solution is mainly responsible for this, e.g., the transformation from anionic to nonionic species with decreasing pH. The nonionic species of 2,4-D, 2,4,5-T, and PCP formed under acidic conditions are more toxic than the anionic species. Thus, depending on the chemical parameters of the soils that determine the degree of sorption and the speciation of toxicants in the liquid phase, soils either can “buffer” high loads of toxicants or can be very sensitive toward contamination.