Risk of water contamination: adsorption of dimethoate on a Mediterranean soil

ABSTRACT

Dimethoate is an insecticide used to protect different types of crops. In this work, the adsorption of pure and commercial dimethoate in an agricultural soil from Granada (southeastern Spain) were studied using batch experiments. The amount of pure and commercial dimethoate retained was 4.47 and 18.2 μg/g respectively. This result shows the weak adsorption of dimethoate by the soil, which is an indication of water pollution risk, but, the presence of organic additives decreases this risk.

KEYWORDS:

• Agricultural soil
• adsorption
• water pollution risk

Acknowledgments

The authors express their gratitude to the Tunisian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research for the financial support (work-study grant internship at IACT Granada, Spain N° 2018-BALT-3548); to the head of the Scientific Analytical Service of Estación Experimental del Zaidín (Granada, Spain) for HPLC analyses; to the anonymous reviewer for his advice; and to the editor for his patience.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).