Estrone Degradation in Soil as Affected by Three Soil Groups

Estrone (E1) is a female hormone present in large quantities in animal farming, which has, in recent decades, resulted in increasing water and soil pollution. Research into its behaviour in the environment has been more focused on water pollution than on soil or soil groups. Three agricultural soils from the Czech Republic—cambisol, fluvisol, and chernozem—were analyzed in a pot experiment to determine their influence on estrone transformation, with laccase, and Mn-oxidoreductases enzymes being measured for this purpose. From the initial concentration of 50 μg·kg−1 soil E1 solution, 1.36 μg·kg−1 were measured on average in the soils after 28 days. There was a clear transition in estrone concentration between 24 h and day 3, reflected in all three soils by increased enzymatic activity. Aside from this, the three soils behaved differently. Results showed that fluvisol was the most different to both cambisol and chernozem. It had the highest enzymatic activity, but also the highest estrone levels in soil at 28 days (5.09 μg·kg−1) vs. cambisol (1.36 μg·kg−1) and chernozem (0.94 μg·kg−1). The removal mechanisms were considered a combination of estrone soil sorption and enzymatic activity, with each soil exhibiting an individual combination of the two. In fluvisol, sorption was considered predominant, thoughenzymatic activity was also relevant; cambisol presented an alternation of sorption and biodegradation, with neither deemed the main mechanism; and chernozem exhibited predominantly high enzymatic activity at the end of the experiment, which resulted in the lowest estrone in soil at the end of the experiment. Overall, all three soils presented good estrone degradation potential through their various soil properties.