Zinc Adsorption in Relation to Soil Properties, Analysed with Langmuir and Freundlich Models in Soils of Kashmir Valley
The phenomenon of fixation of added zinc in soils considerably affects the availability and efficiency of applied zinc. Pertaining to this situation, different land-use soil samples across the valley were analysed for various physico-chemical properties and adsorption capacities. The results showed that the soils were slightly acidic to alkaline in reaction and differ far and wide in other soil properties. Cation exchange capacity (CEC) of the soils showed little variation between the samples and varied from13.3 to 17.2 cmol(p+) kg-1 with an average value of 15.1 cmol(p+) kg-1of soil. The maximum of zinc adsorption were greatly influenced by soil organic matter, clay content and CEC of the soils. The data was fitted to Langmuir and Freundlich equations and the results yielded that the Freundlich equation showed better fit to the sorption data at higher zinc concentrations. However, both the models were having satisfactory results for the obtained data.