DETERMINATION OF DDT AND ITS METABOLITES IN CATTLE DIP SOIL AVAILABLE IN AQUEOUS PHASE AFTER REMEDIATION

Abstract

Soil taken from a former cattle tick dip site in NSW Australia, was remediated with a chemical leaching technology. The pre- and post-remediated soil (20g) was dispersed in water (100mL) and subjected to passive diffusion using polymeric membranes. The remediation reduced tDDT from 1174.3μg/g to 102.9μg/g (ash weight basis), which was further reduced to 43.2μg/g with composting. The membranes accumulated 41.3μg tDDT/g from the dip soil, 49.2μg tDDT/g from the chemically leached soil and 3.1μg tDDT/g from the leached composted soil. The chemical leaching removed over 90% of the tDDT, but released soil bound DDT, which was converted to DDE, while 2.99μg/g was accumulated by the membranes from dip soil, 37.52μg/g was accumulated from remediated soil. Composting, however, almost eliminated the availability for passive diffusion by the membranes from 50 – 60μg/g in remediated soil to 3–3.5μg/g in composted soil. Variability studies of the membranes using eight replicates demonstrated that the accumulation by the membranes was reproducible with an average relative error of 20.3% for p,p'-DDT in soil type two, whilst the lowest average relative error for p,p'-DDE was 4.3%, suggesting that triplicate analyses will achieve acceptable accuracy.

Keywords:

• Bioavailability
• Dip-soil
• Remediation
• Polymeric membranes
• Diffusion
• Dialysis
• Leaching

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to thank the Chairman of the Dip Site Management Committee, John Williams, and the Executive Director Regulatory for NSW Agriculture, Geoff File, for supporting the project.