Dynamics of 95Zr in the rice/water/soil system

In order to get a better understanding of the environmental behavior of 95Zr and to generate fundamental data for evaluation of its ecological risk, an experiment was conducted to study 95Zr dynamics in a simulated rice/water/soil system. The results showed that the concentration of 95Zr in surface water decreased rapidly with time due to precipitation, adsorption to soil and uptake by rice, and most of 95Zr in soil was found concentrated in the surface layer (0–8 cm from surface). The 95Zr could not readily move downwards with percolating water and remained in surface soil. The 95Zr taken up from surface water and surface soil mainly concentrated in roots and lower parts of stem. The concentration of 95Zr in upper part of stem and leaves were relatively lower, which were only slightly greater than the detection limit. The 95Zr concentration in tassel was near the detection limit. The dynamics of 95Zr concentrations in rice, water and soil can be described with exponential function.