Natl. Acad. Sci. Lett.
(January–February 2012) 35(1):13–16
DOI 10.1007/s40009-011-0002-x
SHORT COMMUNICATION
Impact of Fly Ash on Soil Properties
Ashish Tejasvi • Sudhir Kumar
Received: 20 July 2011 / Accepted: 29 August 2011 / Published online: 14 February 2012
Ó The National Academy of Sciences, India 2012
Abstract Management of fly ash is a major environ-
mental and economic concern for the coal fired power
generators all over the world. Fly ash is rich in many macro
and micro plant nutrients. Present study was conducted to
evaluate the impact of fly ash incorporation on physico–
chemical properties of soil for agricultural purposes. Pot
culture experiments were conducted to find out the most
suitable level of fly ash for soil amendment that can
improve the fertility of soil leading to higher productivity
of the test crop. 40% fly ash was found most suitable for
growth and yield of test crop. The amended soil was ana-
lyzed for different physico–chemical properties. It was
observed that fly ash altered the soil texture, decrease bulk
density, increase water holding capacity, soil porosity, pH,
electrical conductivity and organic carbon values of the
soil. A marginal increase was also observed in the con-
centration of P, K, S, Fe, Zn, Mn, B, Ca and Mg elements
in the fly ash amended soil. However, there was marked
decrease in N content of the soil.
Keywords Fly ash
Soil texture
Soil amendment
Introduction
In intensive cropping, indiscriminate use of chemical fer-
tilizers, pesticides and insecticides had led to deterioration
A. Tejasvi (&)
Department of Botany, Agra College, Agra 282001, India
e-mail: tejasvi_ashish@rediffmail.com
S. Kumar
Department of Botany, Kisan P.G. College, Simbhaoli 245207,
India
of soil fertility and depletion of essential micronutrients.
This has resulted in low and inconsistent production of
crops [1]. Nutrients being a major constraint in the devel-
opment of modern agriculture, harvesting the nutrient
energy from biological and industrial waste is of prime
importance for maximizing the food grain production in the
world. When these wastes are recycled through soil for
crop production, due to the degradative and assimilative
capacity of soil, the pollution hazards of these wastes can
be minimized to a greater extent as compared to direct
disposing off at the site. A number of industrial wastes like
fly ash from thermal power plants, paper factory sludge
from paper factory, sewage sludge from municipal source
and farmyard manure from livestock farming are the
important waste resources having potential in recycling in
agricultural land. Fly ash is a waste product residue arising
from the combustion of pulverized coal in coal fired power
generating stations. It has a vast potential for use in agri-
culture through fly ash soil amendment technology
(FASAT) due to the presence of macro and micro nutrients
in it, which can sustain plant growth [2]. The present paper
reports the impact of fly ash incorporation on the physico–
chemical properties of the soil.
Materials and Methods
Fly ash was collected from National capital power plant,
Dadri located in Gautam Budh Nagar District of western
Uttar Pradesh (India). The experimental soil was collected
from the farmer’s field at Meerut. The fly ash and soil were
air dried. The fly ash was mixed with soil (v/v) in seven
proportions (10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 75 and 100%). These soil–ash
mixtures were tested for growth and yield parameters of the
test crop. 40% fly ash (v/v) was found most suitable for
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14 Natl. Acad. Sci. Lett. (January–February 2012) 35(1):13–16

growth and yield of the test crop. The fly ash, soil and 40% fly that fly ash addition altered sandy loam texture of the soil
ash amended soil were analysed for physico–chemical to sandy silty loam. The alteration in soil texture can be
characteristics using the appropriate methods [3–6]. assigned to the predominance of silt size grains in the fly
ash. Fly ash addition at 70 t/ha has been reported to alter
the texture of sandy and clayey soil to loamy [7]. It has
Results and Discussion generally been observed that both sandy and clayey soils
tend to become loamy in texture in the United States [8].
The physical, chemical and mineralogical properties of the The average silt content in fly ash is about 63.2% [9]. In the
soil and fly ash are more or less similar in many respects. The present study silt content of about 50% has been observed
fly ash infact is superior in some respects such as its high which is higher than earlier reports in India, 16 to 45%
water holding capacity (WHC) and low bulk density (BD). [10].
Properties of the soil interact with those of fly ash to modify
the root environment, especially in terms of pH and salinity
Bulk Density
to influence distribution and availability of nutrients in the
soil amended with fly ash. The effect of fly ash amended soil
The grain size distribution especially the silt size range of fly
are listed in Table 1. An addition of 40% (v/v) fly ash altered
ash affects the bulk density of soil. In the present investi-
soil texture, bulk density, water holding capacity and particle
gation, a marked decrease in bulk density from 1.33 to 1.21
size distribution, soil pH, electrical conductivity (EC),
was observed due to amendment of soil with fly ash. Chang
organic carbon (OC) and nutrients in the soil.
et al. [11] reported that silty clay soil showed increase in bulk
density from 0.89 to 1.01 when the corresponding rates of fly
Soil Texture
ash amendment increased from 0 to 100%. But soils with
bulk densities varying between 1.25 and 1.60, a marked
The addition of appropriate quantities of fly ash can alter
decrease in bulk density was observed by addition of fly ash.
the soil texture. In the present study, it has been observed
Page et al. [12, 13] reported that fly ash amendment to a
Table 1 Physico–chemical characteristics of fly ash, soil and fly ash cultivar of agricultural soils tend to decrease the bulk density.
amended soil The bulk density was also noticeably decreased under the
Soil Fly ash Fly ash amended treatments with combined application of organic source, soil
soil (40%) amendment and CF as compared to control and only CF. The
reduction in bulk density in soil was due to lower bulk den-
Physical properties
sity of FA (0.98 g cm-1) and also organic materials
Sand (%) 70.6 38.0 61.0
(0.48–0.52 g cm-1) as compared to bulk density of soil
Silt (%) 19.2 50.0 28.3
(1.34 g cm-1). Similar findings were made by Mittra et al.
Clay (%) 10.2 12.0 10.7
[1], Yeledhalli et al. [14] and Karmakar et al. [6]. Optimum
Texture Sandy loam Silty loam Sandy silt loam
bulk density improves the soil porosity, the workability of
BD (g/cm) 1.34 0.98 1.21
the soil, the root penetration and the moisture retention
WHC (%) 18.0 42.0 27.0
capacity of the soil.
Porosity (%) 49.4 63.0 54.3
Chemical properties
pH 6.7 7.0 7.0 Water Holding Capacity
EC (mmhos/cm) 0.460 0.655 0.514
O C (%) 0.29 0.35 0.32 The moisture retention capacity of the soil ash mixture
N (%) 0.085 – 0.064 increased by 50% than the pure soil. The fly ash is usually
P (%) 0.023 0.040 0.036
dominated by silt sized particles [15–17]. Thus fly ash
K (%) 0.12 0.17 0.14
incorporation exert a beneficial effect in soil water holding
S (%) 0.12 0.46 0.26
capacity in sandy soils, as fine textured substances can hold
more water than coarse textured substrates [11, 16, 18–20].
Fe (%) 0.24 0.81 0.53
The available water content to plant increased by 52 and
Ca (%) 0.20 0.43 0.23
124% over the control for sandy loam and sandy soils,
Mg (%) 0.082 0.240 0.098
respectively, with the addition of 10% fly ash [21]. A study
Zn (ppm) 9.70 31.00 11.90
PAU, Ludhiana [22] indicate that application of fly ash
Cu (ppm) 16.0 22.0 18.6
increase the available water content of loamy sand soil by
Mn (ppm) 103.0 214.0 144.7
120% and of sandy soil by 67%. RRL, Bhopal [23]
B (ppm) 7.5 182.1 42.2
reported that application of fly ash increase the porosity of

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black cotton soil and decreases the porosity of sandy soil
and thereby saves irrigation water from 26 to 30%. Chang
et al. [11] reported that at an addition of 8% fly ash by
weight increased the water holding capacity of the soil.
They also reported that soil hydraulic conductivity
improved at lower rates of fly ash application but deterio-
rated when the rate of fly ash amendment exceeded 20% in
calcareous soils and 10% in acidic soils. The increase in
moisture retention capacity of sandy clay loam, sandy and
sandy loam soils due to fly ash application has also been
reported by Kalra et al. [5]. The improvement in water
holding capacity is beneficial to plants especially under
rainfed agriculture. The substantial increases in plant
available water in fly ash amended soils, relative to the
native nonamended sandy soils, undoubtedly resulted from
incorporation of fine particles leading to increased porosity
[16], and perhaps more importantly a shift in pore size
distribution from primarily large macropores to more
micropores [17, 24]. Therefore, fly ash amended soils, in
combination with appropriate irrigation scheduling, should
aid water management for crops grown in sandy soils.
Soil pH
In the present study, a marginal increase in pH of soil ash
mixture was observed as compared to soil pH. This was
due to the fact that fly ash had neutral pH (7.0) and the
experimental soil was slightly acidic (pH 6.7). The initial
increase in soil pH after alkaline fly ash amendment is
explained by the rapid release of Ca, Na, Al and OH ions
from fly ash [25, 26]. There are reports indicating a high
buffering capacity of the soil for pH restoration [27]. Kalra
et al. [5] reported that the pH of soil ash mixtures
decreased with ash content in clayey, sandy and sandy
loam soils, whereas a reverse trend was noted for sandy
clay loam soils. In India, most of the fly ash produced is
alkaline in nature. Hence, an application of fly ash to
agricultural soil increases the soil pH [2, 28]. This prop-
erty of fly ash can be exploited to neutralize acidic soils
[29–31]. Jastrow et al. [32] reported that while addition of
fly ash improves soil pH on one hand, it concurrently adds
essential plant nutrients to the soil on the other hand.
Experiments with calcareous and acidic soil revealed that
fly ash addition elevated the pH of the former from 8.0 to
10.8 and of the later from 5.4 to 9.9 [12]. It must be noted
here that use of excessive quantities of fly ash to alter pH
can cause increase in soil salinity especially with
unweathered fly ash [9, 33]. Some fly ashes are acidic in
reaction which may be used for reclamation of alkaline
soils to bring pH to near neutrality. However, changes in
soil pH by application of fly ash need to be evaluated on a
long term basis.
15
Electrical Conductivity
The EC of soil–ash mixture was increased by 11.7% as
compared to soil alone. Our results are in agreement with
those of Kalra et al. [5] who observed increase in EC
values with ash content for all texturally variant soils.
Electrical conductivity is positively correlated with pH and
reflects the total concentration of soluble cations and
anions [29, 30]. Therefore, it is quantitatively related to the
concentration of salts. Normal values of EC for vegetable
crops range between 3 and 4 mmhos/cm and higher values
have adverse effects on crop production [34]. EC values
observed in the present study are much lower than the
normal range and hence no adverse effects on crop
production.
Organic Carbon
The organic carbon in the soil influences the nature and
quality of the soil. It affects the soil texture, water holding
capacity, availability of nutrients, etc. The organic carbon
values of soil–ash mixture recorded an increase of 10.3% in
sandy loam soil in the present study. Our results are
comparable to that of Kalra et al. [5] who observed 11.0%
increase in OC values by addition of fly ash in the similar
type of soil. The effect was more pronounced when organic
sources were applied along with fly ash. Similar observa-
tions were made by Mittra et al. [1] and Karmakar et al. [6].
Nutrients
A marginal increase in the concentration of some nutrients
(P, K, S, Fe, Zn, Cu, Mn, B and Mg) in fly ash amended soil
was observed. However, there was decrease in N content
which is a major constraint for large scale application of fly
ash in crop fields. Although, fly ash considerably improved
the physico–chemical characteristics of the soil, however,
the changes in the soil environment need to be investigated
on long term basis.
Acknowledgments The authors are highly thankful to the National
capital power plant, Dadri (Gautam Budh Nagar) for supplying fly ash
for the present study.
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