Predicting chemical speciation of metals in soil using Visual Minteq

From soil contamination and risk assessment perspectives,it is imperative to understand the ecological processes occurring in soils.Certain soil processes greatly affect chemical speciation of potentially toxic metals(PTMs),and thus also influence their biogeochemical activity.The current study analyzed chemical speciation of eight PTMs(Cd,Cr,Fe,Cu,Mn,Ni,Zn,and Pb)in upper and lower soil layers for 15 agronomic fields of Vehari-Pakistan using Visual Minteq software.The divalent forms of most PTMs(PTM^(2+))generally predominated in both soil layers(79.9%overall occurrence).However,chromium revealed a different pattern of chemical speciation(95.8%as CrOH^(+))compared to other PTMs.The mean percentage of all the PTMs2+was slightly higher for the lower soil layer(81.3%)than in the upper layer(78.4%),the trend being same for all the PTMs,except Cr.This higher PTMs^(2+)percentage in lower soil layers than upper layers was due to lower content of organic matter and other anions such as Cl^(−)and HCO_(3)_(−).The mean percentage ages of all the PTMs^(2+)was similar among all the 15 agronomic fields,which was confirmed by strong Pearson correlation values(R^(2)>0.95).The PCA graph grouped all the agronomic fields and PTM^(2+) closely,except Cr^(2+) and Cu^(2+).This grouping confirmed the similar chemical speciation of PTMs,except Cu and Cr in studied fields.