https://repository.hanyang.ac.kr/bitstream/20.500.11754/110830/1/Heavy%20metals%20in%20food%20crops%20Health%20risks%2c%20fate%2c%20mechanisms%2c%20and%20management.pdf

Heavy metals in food crops: Health risks, fate, mechanisms, and management

Heavy metals are released into the environment by both anthropogenic and natural sources. Highly reactive and often toxic at low concentrations, they may enter soils and groundwater, bioaccumulate in food webs, and adversely affect biota. Heavy metals also may remain in the environment for years, posing long-term risks to life well after point sources of heavy metal pollution have been removed. In this review, we compile studies of the community-level effects of heavy metal pollution, including heavy metal transfer from soils to plants, microbes, invertebrates, and to both small and large mammals (including humans). Many factors contribute to heavy metal accumulation in animals including behavior, physiology, and diet. Biotic effects of heavy metals are often quite different for essential and non-essential heavy metals, and vary depending on the specific metal involved. They also differ for adapted organisms, including metallophyte plants and heavy metal-tolerant insects, which occur in naturally high-metal habitats (such as serpentine soils) and have adaptations that allow them to tolerate exposure to relatively high concentrations of some heavy metals. Some metallophyte plants are hyperaccumulators of certain heavy metals and new technologies using them to clean metal-contaminated soil (phytoextraction) may offer economically attractive solutions to some metal pollution challenges. These new technologies provide incentive to catalog and protect the unique biodiversity of habitats that have naturally high levels of heavy metals.

/pdf/transfer-of-heavy-metals-through-terrestrial-food-webs-a-az81f8ytbd.pdf

Transfer of heavy metals through terrestrial food webs: a review

Cadmium minimization in wheat: A critical review

The solid-liquid interface reaction between phosphate rock (PR) and metals (Pb, Cu, and Zn) was studied. Phosphate rock has the highest affinity for Pb, followed by Cu and Zn, with sorption capacities of 138, 114, and 83.2 mmol/kg PR, respectively. In the Pb-Cu-Zn ternary system, competitive metal sorption occurred with sorption capacity reduction of 15.2%, 48.3%, and 75.6% for Pb, Cu, and Zn, respectively compared to the mono-metal systems. A fractional factorial design showed the interfering effect in the order of Pb>Cu>Zn. Desorption of Cu and Zn was sensitive to pH change, increasing with pH decline, whereas Pb desorption was decreased with a strongly acidic TCLP extracting solution (pH = 2.93). The greatest stability of Pb retention by PR can be attributed to the formation of insoluble fluoropyromorphite [Pb(10)(PO(4))(6)F(2)], which was primarily responsible for Pb immobilization (up to 78.3%), with less contribution from the surface adsorption or complexation (21.7%), compared to 74.5% for Cu and 95.7% for Zn. Solution pH reduction during metal retention and flow calorimetry analysis both supported the hypothesis of retention of Pb, Cu, and Zn by surface adsorption or complexation. Flow calorimetry indicated that Pb and Cu adsorption onto PR was exothermic, while Zn sorption was endothermic. Our research demonstrated that PR can effectively remove Pb from solutions, even in the presence of other heavy metals (e.g. Cu, Zn).

https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=ersc_fac

Xiao-Fang Guo

Papers

Designing Cropping Systems for Metal-Contaminated Sites: A Review

Cadmium and Zinc Accumulation in Maize Grain as Affected by Cultivars and Chemical Fixation Amendments