Soil ingestion is an important human exposure pathway for lead (Pb). A modified physiologically based extraction test was applied to 70 soil samples from five battery plants in East China. The mean values for soil pH, soil organic matter, Fe and Mn concentrations ranged from 5.9% to 8.1, 0.37% to 2.2%, 2.78% to 3.75%, and 507-577 mg kg(-1), respectively, while Pb concentrations ranged widely in 14.3-2000 mg kg(-1). The isotopic ratios of 14 soils from one of the five battery plants formed a straight line in the plot of (208)Pb/(206)Pb vs. (207)Pb/(206)Pb, indicating Pb emissions from the lead battery plant as the dominant anthropogenic source within 200 m. Lead bioaccessibility in the soils ranged from 4.1% to 66.9% in the gastric phase and from 0.28% to 9.29% in the gastrointestinal phase. Multiple step regressions identified modes as BAgastric=-106.8+0.627[Pb]+19.1[Fe]+11.3[SOM], and BAgastrointestinal=-2.852+0.078[Pb].
Keywords: Bioaccessibility; Lead battery plant; Pb isotope; Physiologically based extraction test (PBET); Soil.
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