Assessments of Heavy Metals in Commercially Available Fertilizers in Brunei Darussalam
- PDF / 285,383 Bytes
- 9 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 58 Downloads / 194 Views
FULL-LENGTH RESEARCH ARTICLE
Assessments of Heavy Metals in Commercially Available Fertilizers in Brunei Darussalam A. A. Zunaidi1
•
L. H. Lim1
•
F. Metali2
Received: 5 January 2020 / Accepted: 31 August 2020 Ó NAAS (National Academy of Agricultural Sciences) 2020
Abstract The use of fertilizers in agriculture is vital for crop growth and yield particularly in nutrient-limited soils. However, fertilizer application has been found to increase heavy metal (HM) contents which could affect the crop and soil quality. This study aimed to determine selected HMs concentrations in 11 commercially available fertilizers in Brunei Darussalam, comprising of organic (poultry manure, sheep manure and compost) and inorganic (seven NPK fertilizers and urea) fertilizers using an inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy. All fertilizers had metal concentrations that were mostly below the standard safety limits. The highest average metal concentration in all fertilizers was Al, particularly in sheep manure but there are no standard safety limits set for Al. The Cd contents in inorganic fertilizers (NPK ? Mg ? TE 12:12:17:02, NPK ? TE 15:15:15 and NPK 13:13:21) were above the permissible safety limits of China and Japan (8 mg kg-1) but below the safety guidelines set by Australia, Canada and European Commission. The Cd, Co, Cr, Mn, Ni and Pb levels were found to be the highest in NPK ? Mg ? TE 12:12:17:02 than all the other fertilizers while the highest levels of Fe and Al, and Cu and Zn were observed in the sheep manure and poultry manure, respectively, relative to other fertilizers. Almost all HMs analyzed was highly correlated with each other, suggesting that the HMs could be present as a complex from similar sources. Hence, continuous and repeated monitoring of HM concentrations in fertilizers is recommended to assess potential health risks in plants and humans towards achieving food security. Keywords Agriculture Fertilizers Heavy metals ICP-OES Nutrients Soils
Introduction
& A. A. Zunaidi [email protected] L. H. Lim [email protected] F. Metali [email protected] 1
Chemical Sciences, Faculty of Science, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Jalan Tungku Link, Gadong BE1410, Brunei Darussalam
2
Environmental and Life Sciences, Faculty of Science, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Jalan Tungku Link, Gadong BE1410, Brunei Darussalam
Plants, like humans, require nutrients that are essential for them to grow as nutrient deficiency in plants is one of the important criteria for identifying and diagnosing plant nutrition problems [5]. Fertilizers, either naturally or artificially produced, are chemical compounds that are utilized to improve plant growth and enhance soil fertility by providing nutrients in large quantities for producing healthy crops with high yields [17, 27, 38]. As a result, fertilizers are frequently incorporated into the plantation soil as a routine practice [4]. However, continuous application of fertilizers in agricultural soils may result in the accumulation of toxic heavy met
Data Loading...
