Sulfur in soils

TABLE 8.4. Oxidized and Reduced Forms of Certain Elements in Soils and the Redox Potentials (Eh) at which Change in Forms Commonly Occurs0 

Oxidized Form Reduced Form Eh at Which Change of Form Occurs 

---

Determination of Total Sulfur in Soils. Soil Science Society of America Journal, 34, 417-420. 

The extent to which any plant will convert inorganic sulfur taken up from the soil into amino acids and incorporate these into protein is controlled by die genetics of the plant, Increasing the available sulfur in soils to levels in excess of those needed for optimum plant growth will not increase the concentration of sulfur amino acids in plant tissues. To meet die requirements for sulfur amino acids in human diets, the use of food plant species with die inherited ability to build proteins with high levels of sulfur amino acids is required in addition to that supplied by way of the soil. 

Clark and Lesage [76] have described a method for the determination of elemental sulfur in soils using gas chromatography with flame photometric detection after the sulfur is reacted to form Ph3PS. 

Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1979) The Analysis of Agricultural Materials - Acid Soluble and Water Soluble Sulfate Sulfur in Soil Being Considered for Tile Draining Method 87, Technical Bulletin RB427, Second Edition, HMSO, London, UK. 

Little or no fractionation accompanies the uptake of sulfate in soils by plants during ASR (60.611. Chukhrov et al. ( Q) showed that in cases where atmospheric sulfate is not subject to bacterial reduction in the soil, the value of the plant sulfur was identical to rainfall sulfur. In soils subject to dissimilatory sulfate reduction, the 6 S value of plant sulfur differed from that of local rainfall. Additionally, Chukhrov et al. (60) found that plants from oceanic islands had a sulfur content with higher values than those from continental areas, which they attribute to the relative influence of marine sulfate to these areas. 

Skyllberg, U. L., Bloom, P. R., Nater, E. A., Xia, K., and Bleam, W. F. (1997). Binding of mercury(II) by reduced sulfur in soil organic matter. In Extended Abstracts, 4th International Conference on the Biogeochemistry of Trace Elements, June 23—26 1997, Berkeley, CA, U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, Hanover, NH, 285-286. 

This book is a broad-based text covering classification of pollutants nitrogen, phosphorus. and sulfur in soil trace elements organic chemicals blogeochemlcal cycles tire atmosphere and risk assessment... 

Brown, G. Kanaris-Sotiriov, R. (1969) The determination of sulfur in soils by X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. The Analyst, 94, 782-786. 

Sullivan, L.A., Bush, R.T., McConchie, D., Lancaster, G., Haskins, P.G. Clark, M.W. (1999) Comparison of peroxide oxidisable sulfur and chromium reducible sulfur methods for determination of reduced inorganic sulfur in soil. Aust. J. Soil Res., 37, 255-265. 

Elemental sulfur, in soil/sediment and waste extracts, can be removed by reaction with clean copper metal.USEPA Method 3660B calls for the extract to be concentrated to 1.0 ml and shaken with 2 grams of copper powder to remove elemental sulfur. ° The sample could then be fractionated to remove alkanes or other interferences. 

Xia K, Skyllberg UL, Bleam WF, Bloom PR, Nater EA, Helmke PA (1999) X-ray absorption spectroscopic evidence for the complexation of Hg(II) by reduced sulfur in soil humic substances. Environ Sci Technol 33 257-261... 

Kowalenko, C.G. (1978) Organic nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur in soils. In Schnitzer, M. and Khan, S.U. (eds) Soil Organic Matter. Elsevier, New York, pp. 95-1 35. 

Organic sulfur in soils is poorly characterized. In soil organic matter, organic sulfur constitutes 93% of the total sulfur and is present in two major forms (Table 11.3) ... 

Carbon-bonded sulfur compounds. These are primarily sulfur-containing peptides, proteins, and amino acids such as cysteine, cystine, and methionine. Approximately 41% of the total sulfur in soil organic matter is present in this form. 

Assuming 40% carbon in the plant tissue, the C S ratio of 200 to 400 approximately corresponds to 0.1-0.2% of sulfur in the plant tissue. MBS turnover rates are fairly rapid. The soil MBS fraction of the total organic sulfur in soil is relatively labile. The microbial biomass in soils range from 3 to 300 pgS dry soil" (Banerjee and Chapman, 1996). 

FIGURE 17.36 Vertical distribution of total sulfur in soils at impacted and unimpacted sites in the WCA-2A (Bates et al., 1998.). 

Banerjee, M. R. and S. J. Chapman. 1996. The significance of microbial biomass sulfur in soil. Biol. Fert. Soils 22 116-125. 

Isotopic Compositions of Strontium and Sulfur in Soil Salts on Ross Island Including the Summit of Mt. Erebus ... 

Figures 6.3 and 6.4 show preindustrial and present-day circulation of S in earth s surface environment. Sulfur supply to the atmosphere by industrial activities (e.g., burning of fossil fuels, smelting) is 113 x lO g year that is about eight times of flux by volcanism (14 x lO g year" ) (Kimura 1989). Riverine sulfur flux to ocean is 208 x lO g year. A half of this flux is considered to be of anthropogenic source (Holland 1978). Sulfur in environment (atmosphere, river water) is the element that is significantly affected by human activity, the greatest among elements. According to previous estimates most of sulfur in acid rain transfer to river water. However, acid rain containing sulfur reacts with soil and evaporite, leading to the formation of sulfate minerals and fixation of sulfur in soil. If we take into accotmt the amount of sulfur fixation as sulfates in soil, previously obtained...

SAGGAR S., BETTANY J.R. and STEWART J.W.B. 1981. Measurement of microbial sulfur in soil. Soil Biology and Biochemistry, 3, 493-498. 

---