Page 22 - GreenMaster Winter 2025

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The particle size of POC detected
in this experiment ranged between
0.45 µm and 0.05 mm, and its
accumulation has been previously
reported to be responsible for
development of soil water repellency
(Puget et al., 2000). This result
suggested that ABP application will
most likely lead to a decline in soil
water repellency, as its application
removed more abundant fine organic
particles that were coated on the
sand surfaces.
The amount of SOC detected on
the sand surfaces after the
completion of this experiment
showed that compared to ABP, PoAP
application consistently increased
SOC in both hydrophobic and fresh
sands. Compared to untreated fresh
sands, PoAP application led to 45%
increase in SOC, again suggesting a
significant portion of the PoAP
molecules are adsorbed onto the
sand surfaces, regardless of the
presence of organic coatings.
In comparison, our results
suggested that ABP application
initiated a replacement mechanism,
in which ABP monomers replaced
some of the organic coatings on the
sand surface with its own molecules.
Regardless, these results suggested
that wetting agents we apply can
accumulate in the soil and become
part of the coatings. This pheno-
menon has also been documented by
Bera et al. (2013), who utilized X-ray
diffraction and Fourier transform
infrared spectroscopy and confirmed
that the ethoxylate groups of the
surfactant can be adsorbed to the
sand surface.
The hydrophobicity test
performed after destructively
sampling showed that ABP-treated
hydrophobic sands had their water
repellency completely reversed and
became fully wettable after three
applications (Figure 1).
In contrast, PoAP significantly
increased water repellency, elevating
MED values from 2.2M to 4.3M, a
category defined as “very severe”
hydrophobicity (King, 1981).
Alarmingly, PoAP even induced
measurable repellency in fresh,
unused sand that was initially
wettable. This evidence suggests
that while ABP reduces soil water