Plant availability of phosphorus sorbed to potential wastewater treatment materials

Ecologically engineered wastewater treatment facilities, such as constructed wetlands and infiltration plants, can be further improved in their P retention by using reactive media with a high P-retention capacity. In a sustainable system, the sorbed P should be recycled in agricultural production. The objective of the present study was to determine the plant availability of P sorbed to different P-retention media. The studied media were: crystalline and amorphous blast furnace slag, natural and burned opoka (a bedrock from Poland), limestone, burned lime, soil from a spodic B horizon, and light expanded clay aggregates (LECA). They were soaked in a P solution, rinsed and dried before incorporation into soil. An additional aim was to compare P taken up by barley with amounts chemically extracted for the estimation of plant-available soil P. P sorbed to the crystalline slag was delivered to the barley plants more efficiently than P added in K₂HPO₄ fertiliser. Soil extraction with acid ammonium lactate correlated well with P taken up by barley and indicated that P bound to Ca is more available to plants than P bound to Al and Fe. The Mg content of the used slag may replace Mg fertilisation in certain soils. It was concluded that among the investigated filter materials, crystalline slag was the most suitable sorbent from an agricultural point of view, since it possessed a large P-sorption capacity and the sorbed P was largely plant available. The heavy metal content of sorption materials must be examined carefully before their application to agricultural soils.