EXPOSOIL
Financiado
The Identification of the Reactive Pore Space in Soils
Ensuring the quality of our soils is essential for a sustainable world. Testing the soil quality traditionally occurs by soil sampling, sieving and extraction, thereby disturbing the soil’s hierarchical pore size structure. Soil s...
Ensuring the quality of our soils is essential for a sustainable world. Testing the soil quality traditionally occurs by soil sampling, sieving and extraction, thereby disturbing the soil’s hierarchical pore size structure. Soil sieving and extraction disrupts the macro-aggregates and overestimates the accessible reactive surfaces of soil. Plant roots are exposed to only a fraction of these soil reactive surfaces, hence traditional soil tests for bioavailability underscore the physical non-equilibrium of nutrients and contaminants in soil. EXPOSOIL aims to identify the reactive pore space to which roots are exposed in undisturbed soil. The research objectives are to quantify the effects of soil structure and mobile colloids on bioavailability of nutrients and contaminants and to develop methods to understand and diagnose these effects. We speculate that these effects create local heterogeneities that are most important in soils with stronger aggregate structure, for contaminants or nutrients that are relatively immobile and less aged in soil and for elements strongly associated to mobile colloids. Experimental studies will be set up to test these hypotheses in soils with surface amended trace metal contaminants, fertilisers or lime, using isotopes to trace local provenances and using novel visualisation tools. Novel reactive membranes acting as zero sinks for solutes and colloids will be developed to mimic plant roots and to make 2D images of the locally available elements. That development is of high risk but high gain because no other method has yet assayed diffusive fluxes of solutes, let alone of colloids, in unsaturated and undisturbed soils. The new method will disclose the enigmatic roles of soil physical factors and colloids on bioavailability. This knowledge will advance the practical use of soil chemistry in environmental applications, e.g. to improve existing soil testing assays and to facilitate the development of novel, more efficient fertilisers.
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Duración del proyecto: 64 meses
Fecha Inicio: 2022-05-11
Fecha Fin: 2027-09-30
Fecha Fin: 2027-09-30
Línea de financiación: concedida
El organismo HORIZON EUROPE notifico la concesión del proyecto el día 2022-05-11
Línea de financiación objetivo
El proyecto se financió a través de la siguiente ayuda:
ERC-2021-ADG:
ERC ADVANCED GRANTS
Cerrada
hace 3 años
Presupuesto
El presupuesto total del proyecto asciende a
2M€
Líder del proyecto
KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN
No se ha especificado una descripción o un objeto social para esta compañía.
Perfil tecnológico
TRL
4-5
Perfil tecnológico
TRL
4-5