A study was conducted to determine the feasibility of devising a chemical assay to predict the bioavailability of organic compounds that become sequestered in soil. The recovery of atrazine and phenanthrene freshly added to soil varied appreciably among individual solvents, but the quantity extracted by each solvent declined as the test compounds persisted in soil. The percentage recovered by some extractants approximated either the percentage uptake by earthworms or bacterial degradation. Recovery by one extractant predicted bioavailability to both organisms. The data suggest that it is feasible to predict bioavailability of persistent organic compounds in soil by chemical procedures.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.