[Effects of exogenous dimethylarsinic acid on Brassica campestris growth and soil arsenic bioavailability].

A pot experiment was conducted to study the effects of exogenous dimethylarsinic acid (DMA) on the growth of Brassica campestris and the bioavailability of soil arsenic (As). With the increasing concentration of applied DMA, the emergence rate and biomass of B. campestris increased at low concentration DMA, but decreased at high concentration DMA. When the DMA concentration reached 90 mg x kg(-1), the emergence rate and biomass of B. campestris in the second cropping decreased by 9.5% and 57.0%, respectively, compared with those in the control, indicating that exogenous DMA had longer-term effects on the growth of B. campestris. The soil available As and the As uptake by B. campestris all increased with increasing concentration of exogenous DMA, and there existed significant correlations among them. After applied into soil, the exogenous DMA demethylated, with As(V) as the main product and lesser amount of As (III), and the concentrations of soil As(V) and As(III) increased with increasing application rate of exogenous DMA.

[Influence of flooding on form transformation of soil arsenic].

An incubation test was conducted to study the dynamics of exogenously supplied dimethylarsenic acid (DMA), monomethylarsonic acid (MMA), and As(V) in soil under flooding. With the increasing time of incubation, the exogenously supplied DMA and MMA were mainly transformed into As(V), and the As(V) concentration increased, being significantly higher after incubated for 150 days, compared with that after incubated for 1 day. The exogenously supplied DMA was demethylated into As(V) within 30 days, accompanied by a little As(III), while the transformation rate of exogenously supplied MMA was rather slow within 60 days, accompanied by a little As(III) and DMA. The exogenously supplied As(V) decreased with increasing time of incubation, and its form had less change except that a little As(III) occurred.

[Transformation of exogenous dimethyl arsenic in soil].

A pot experiment was conducted to study the speciation transformation of exogenous dimethyl arsenic (DMA) in soil. The added DMA was mainly transformed into arsenate [As(V)], accompanied with a small amount of monomethyl arsenic (MMA). When the concentration of added DMA was 30 mg x kg(-1), the transformation rate was the highest, being 6.71%, 8.11%, 11.33%, and 19.32% when the cultivation time was 10, 15, 30, and 40 days, respectively. With increasing concentration of added DMA, soil soluble arsenic (AE-As) had an increasing trend, but decreased as the cultivation time increased. Comparing with CK, the addition of DMA increased the concentrations of soil arsenic bounded to aluminum (Al-As), iron (Fe-As), calcium (Ca-As), which was possibly due to the adsorption or fixation of added DMA and its transformation products by the oxides or hydroxides of soil aluminum, iron, and calcium.

[Transformation of different exogenous arsenic forms in soil under aerobic condition].

An incubation test was conducted to study the transformation of exogenous dimethylarsenic acid (DMA), monomethylarsenic acid (MMA), and arsenate [As(V)] in soil under the condition of 35% of water-holding capacity. After added into soil, the concentrations of test arsenic forms all showed a decreasing trend with time. The DMA and MMA were mainly demethylated, and after 120 days incubation at constant temperature and humidity, transformed into As(V). A small amount of MMA was detected in the treatment with added DMA on the 120th day of incubation, and a small amount of DMA was detected in the treatment with added MMA during the period of 7-60 days incubation. By the end of the incubation test, the concentrations of added DMA and MMA in soil decreased significantly (P < 0.01), with the decrement being 99.5% and 94.3% and the concentration of transformed As(V) increased by 4.61 and 5.15 times, respectively. Comparing with DMA and MMA, the As(V) after added into soil had less form transformation.

[Form transformation of arsenic in soil and corresponding analyzing methods].

Based on the analysis of the sources and existing forms of soil arsenic, this paper approached the inter-transformationr of different arsenic forms in soil. In the meanwhile, the extraction and determination methods of different soil arsenic forms were also compared. It was considered that HPLC-HG-AFS had the advantages of high sensitivity, low detection limit, better selectivity, low operation cost, and less inter-transformation of different arsenic forms, being able to be used as the prior method for the detection of different arsenic forms. Combining with previous research results, the form transformation of arsenic in soil and the promising research aspects were also discussed.