Adsorption of glucosinolates to metal oxides, clay minerals and humic acid

Abstract Glucosinolates are thioglucosides produced by plants belonging to the Capparales order. Glucosinolates can upon hydrolysis be transformed into a variety of bioactive compounds with a potential to serve as naturally produced pesticides. This paper presents results on the adsorption of prop-2-enyl and benzyl glucosinolate to two metal oxides (amorphous aluminium hydroxide and goethite), two clay minerals (kaolinite and montmorillonite) and to humic acid at different initial concentrations and at pH 4 and 8. The results show that the glucosinolates are weakly adsorbed to the variable-charge minerals with K d ranging from 0.00 to 1.85 L kg − 1 and that adsorption was higher at pH 4 than 8 indicating that adsorption takes place by electrostatic interactions between the negatively charged glucosinolates and positive sites on the minerals. On the humic acid higher K d values were observed for prop-2-enyl glucosinolate (7.22 and 12.3 L kg − 1 ), indicating that hydrophobic interactions may take place between the glucosinolate and humic acid. On the montmorillonite anion exclusion was observed as an effect of the negatively charged glucosinolates being repelled from the negatively charged montmorillonite surface. Thus glucosinolates will be very mobile in the soil environment with the potential of leaching to ground and surface waters where the toxic hydrolysis products may be formed.