Wood biochars and vermicomposts from digestate modulate the extent of adsorption-desorption of the fungicide metalaxyl-m in a silty soil

This study aimed to investigate changes in metalaxyl-M sorption-desorption capacity of soil following the addition of two types of amendments. Two biochars (BC) from grapevine pruning residues (BC-G) and spruce wood (BC-S) and two vermicomposts (VC) obtained vermicomposting digestates from a mixture of manure and olive mill wastewater (VC-M) and buffalo manure (VC-B) were used. Using a batch equilibration method, the materials and a silt loam soil non-amended or amended with each material at 2% (w/w) were interacted with the fungicide at a concentration of 2 mg L−1 for kinetics study and in the range 1–20 mg L−1 for sorption isotherms. Kinetics results showed that metalaxyl-M onto the amendments and non-amended soil followed preferentially a pseudo-second-order model, thus indicating a chemisorption process. Sorption isotherm data of the product on BC and VC fitted well the Freundlich equation, whereas those on non-amended and amended soil followed preferentially a linear model. The KFads values were 995.2, 788.5, 55.2, 52.1, 6.4, 6.0, 3.4, 2.6 and 1.5 L kg−1 for BC-G, BC-S, VC-M, VC-B, soil-BC-G, soil-BC-S, soil-VC-M, soil-VC-B and non-amended soil, respectively. Product desorption from each soil sample occurred to a lesser extent than sorption. Highly significant correlations (P < 0.005) were found between the values of sorption and desorption constants of all adsorbents and organic C content, thus confirming the prominent role of organic matter in the sorption process of metalaxyl-M.