A humic acid loaded nano-zero-valent iron composite for enhanced immobilization of chromium and cadmium from soil.

Authors

Xi Chen, Jianwei Yang, Lin He, Wenxia Wang, Xiangyu Xu, Muhammad Shaaban, Yajun Cai, Qi-An Peng

Published in

Frontiers in plant science. Volume 17. Pages 1894863. Epub Jul 27, 2026.

Abstract

As the global demand for soil pollution control becomes increasingly urgent, innovative material application strategies are essential for remediating soils co-contaminated with chromium (Cr) and cadmium (Cd) by efficiently immobilizing heavy metal ions and promoting their stabilization. This study evaluated humic acid-loaded nanoscale zero-valent iron (nZVI@HA) for the remediation of Cr- and Cd-contaminated soil.
The remediation performance and underlying mechanisms of nZVI@HA were systematically investigated through soil incubation experiments, metal speciation analysis, high-throughput sequencing, and quantitative real-time PCR.
nZVI@HA achieved immobilization efficiencies of 58.19% for available Cr and 35.84% for available Cd. On day 50 of remediation, exchangeable Cr and Cd were markedly transformed into residual, Fe-Mn oxide-bound, and carbonate-bound fractions, substantially reducing their mobility and bioavailability. Concurrently, nZVI@HA alleviated Cr(VI) and Cd(II) stress, increased microbial community diversity, and improved soil fertility. The enrichment of taxa associated with ChrA, CzcA, and NitR suggests that nZVI@HA may enhance microbial resistance to Cr(VI) and Cd(II), potentially contributing to Cr and Cd immobilization.
The immobilization mechanisms primarily involved chemical reduction, adsorption, ion exchange, and microbially mediated processes. The synergistic effects between nZVI@HA and soil microorganisms make nZVI@HA an efficient and environmentally benign remediation material, providing an effective strategy for treating soils co-contaminated with heavy metals.

PMID:
42577434
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 11 Aug 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.