Nutrients and carbon fate in two lowland contrasting soils amended with compost

Alessandrino, Luigi; Gervasio, Maria Pia; Vincenzi, Fabio; Colombani, Nicolò; Castaldelli, Giuseppe; Mastrocicco, Micòl

doi:10.1016/j.catena.2021.105493

Cited by 11 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 52 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…To limit soil degradation and to improve the soil physical characteristics, different soil conditioners, both organic and inorganic, may be used as soil amendments [18]. Soil conditioners can improve soil's hydrophysical characteristics, quality, and fertility [19][20][21][22][23][24][25] Biochar, compost, and zeolites are the most common soil conditioners used for altering physical, chemical, and biochemical soil properties [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35]. Biochar presents various positive functions in agricultural applications and has gained much attention in recent years [36][37][38].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although graphene production is still very challenging, and we are still far from a largescale process, it has boomed exponentially since 2004, so it is very likely that graphene production scraps and graphene-based waste will increase in the coming years [47]. On this basis, and given that recent studies showed that the application of graphene to soils did not lead to an increase in nutrients or heavy-metal leaching [23,24,30,31], it is important to properly investigate its effects on various soil types to understand if graphene-based scraps could be eventually employed in agricultural systems, including graphene in an appropriate circular-economy scheme [48].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Effects of Graphene on Soil Water-Retention Curve, van Genuchten Parameters, and Soil Pore Size Distribution—A Comparison with Traditional Soil Conditioners

Alessandrino

Pavlakis²,

Colombani

et al. 2023

Water

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Graphene waste has had enormous growth due to many industrial applications. Agriculture exploits waste through the circular economy, and graphene waste is thereby investigated in this study as a soil conditioner for improving the physical–hydraulic properties of soil. Experiments were performed on three differently textured soils amended with traditional soil conditioners (compost, biochar, and zeolites) and graphene. The conditioners were applied at two different doses of 10% and 5% dry weight (d.w.) for compost, biochar, and zeolites, and 1.0% and 0.5% d.w. for graphene. We compared (i) the major porosity classes related to water-retention characteristics (drainage, storage, and residual porosity), (ii) bulk density, and (iii) van Genuchten water-retention curve (WRC) characteristics. Graphene application caused the largest decrease in dry bulk density (ρb), lowering the soil bulk density by about 25%. In fact, graphene had ρb of 0.01 g/cm3. The effects of graphene were more intense in the finer soil. Compost and biochar showed similar effects, but of lower magnitude compared to those of graphene, with ρb of 0.7 and 0.28 g/cm3, respectively. Although zeolites had ρb of 0.62 g/cm3, they showed quite different behavior in increasing the mixtures’ ρb. Graphene and biochar showed the most pronounced effects in the clayey soil, where storage porosity showed a reduction of >30% compared to the control. For storage porosity, the graphene treatments did not show statistically significant differences compared to the control. The results show that, when the conditioner increased drainage porosity, there was a high probability of a concomitant reduction in storage porosity. This finding indicates that graphene use for improving soil aeration and drainage conditions is viable, especially in fine soils.

show abstract