Study of the Metals Absorption in Culture Corn Irrigated with Domestic Sewage by SR‐TXRF

The main objective of this work was to evaluate the absorption of metals coming from the domestic sewage supplied through an irrigation system by furrows. For this, the culture corn (Zea mays L.) (AG 405‐AGROCERES) was irrigated by two different treatments: irrigation with domestic sewage and water. After the vegetative growth, the collected plants were divided into two parts: grains and leaves. These different parts were subjected to the digestion procedure in an open system and then analyzed by total reflection X‐ray fluorescence analysis with synchrotron radiation (SR‐TXRF). It was observed that the concentration of metals in the plants irrigated with sewage was higher than in the plants irrigated with water. The results indicate that the absorption of metals, in the leaves and spikes, is directly related to the application rate of water irrigation. But, in the case of the irrigation with domestic sewage, a larger absorption of metals was observed when the plant was irrigated with 180L application rate, so much for the leaves as for the spike.