Contribution of attendant anions on cadmium toxicity to soil enzymes

Sorption and desorption are critical processes to control the mobility and biotoxicity of cadmium (Cd) in soils. It is known that attendant anion species of heavy metals could affect metal adsorption on soils and might further alter their biotoxicity. However, for Cd, the influence of attendant anions on its sorption in soils and subsequent toxicity on soil enzymes are still unknown. In this work, four Cd compounds with different salt anions (SO₄^2-, NO₃^-, Cl^-, and Ac^-) were selected to investigate their impact of on the sorption, soil dehydrogenase activity (DHA) and alkaline phosphatase activity (ALP). Thus, a series of simulated Cd pollution batch experiments including measuring adsorption-desorption behavior of Cd on soils and soil enzyme activities were carried out. Results showed that CdSO₄ exhibited highest sorption capacity among the tested soils except in Hunan soil. The Cd sorption with NO₃^- displayed a similar behavior with Cl^- on all tested soils. Compared with soil properties, all four kinds of anions on Cd sorption played a more significant role affecting Cd ecological toxicity to soil DHA and ALP. Cd in acetate or nitrate form appears more sensitive towards DHA than sulphate and chloride, while the later pair is more toxic towards ALP than the former. These results have important implications for evaluation of Cd contamination using soil enzyme as bioindicator.