The effect of nanoparticles of Aluminum oxide, Silicon oxide on soil structural stability indicators

Soil structure is the most important property which affects other soil properties such as erosion, water infiltration into soil. Application of soil onditioners is one ways to improve soil physical properties. Nanoparticles are one of the newest materials that can influence the soil physical properties. The results of reseravhers show that application of nanomaterial affect soil mechanical properties (liquid and plastic limits). Therfore, the aim of this research was to study the effect of nanomaterials, including nano silicon oxide (nSio2) and nano Aluminum oxide (nAl2o3) on soil structural stability indicators.
In order to investigate the effect of nano-aluminum oxide and nano-silicon oxide on stractiral stability indicators a silt loam soil was selected. The studied soil was collected from Agricultural Research Center of Khorasan Razavi province, was air dried, and passed through 4.0-mm sieve. The experiment was conducted as a completely randomized design with 9 treatments and 3 replications. The studied treatments include control (without any amendment) nano aluminum oxide (0.002, 0.005, 0.01 and 0.02 % w/w) and nanao silicon oxide (0.002, 0.005, 0.01 and 0.02 % w/w). After addition the different treatments to soil in boxes of 5 Kg, they were incubated for 4 months at moisture range from field capacity (FC) to 50% FC at 18-25oC in greenhouse conditions. Then some soil structural stability indices including mean weight diameter of wet (MWDwet) and dry (MWDdry) aggregates, aggregate stability (AS) and percentage of aggregate destruction (PAD) were measured. Statistical analysis by one way analysis and comparison of means at P The results showed that application of amendments had a significant effect on structural stability indicators and addition of both nanomaterials to the soil increased MWDwet, MWDdry and AS and decreased PAD, siginificantly. The maximum value of MWDwet and MWDdry was obtained by application of 0.02 % nano-aluminum oxide and by increasing the concentration of both nano materials MWDdry and MWDwet increasd. The minimum percentage of aggregate destruction (PAD) was obtained by application of 0.01 % nano silicon oxide and regard to PAD, there was no significant difference between the different concentrations of nano silicon oxide.
According to the results of this research, application of nano aluminum oxide and nano silicon oxide improved structural stability and nano silicon oxide was better than nano aluminium oxide in decreasing the percentage of destruction aggregate.