Lead (II) Pollution Enhances the Binding of Transgenic Toxin in Brown and Red Soils: Equilibrium and Kinetics
Abstract Genetically modified crops, which produce insecticidal toxins from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), release the toxins into soils. Although the phenomena of persistence and degradation of Bt toxins have been documented, the effect of heavy metals on the fate of these toxins in soil has not yet been elucidated. The effect of Pb(II) on the adsorption behaviors of Bt toxin in brown and red soil was investigated. With the increase of Pb(II) concentration, the adsorption of Bt toxin in brown and red soil increased. The Langmuir, Freundlich and Dubinin–Radushkevich (D–R) isotherm models gave better fitting to the experimental equilibrium data. Values of KL, KF and n increased but RL decreased with the increase of Pb(II) concentration, showing that the Pb(II) promoted the adsorption of Bt toxin in soils. The mean free energy of adsorption (E) ranged from 10.43 to 16.44 kJ mol−1 may correspond to a chemical ion-exchange mechanism. Three kinds of kinetic models, the pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order and intraparticle diffusion model, were used to test the experimental data. The results showed that the adsorption of Bt toxin by brown and red soil followed the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. The addition of Pb(II) during the adsorption led to a decrease of the desorption of Bt toxin from soils, indicating that the residual risk of Bt toxin may become larger if soil is polluted by lead.