Journal of Hazardous Materials 343 (2018) 78–85 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Hazardous Materials jo ur nal ho me p ag e: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhazmat Thallium isotopes in metallurgical wastes/contaminated soils: A novel tool to trace metal source and behavior Aleˇ s Vanˇ ek a,∗ , Zuzana Grösslová a , Martin Mihaljeviˇ c b , Vojtˇ ech Ettler b , Jakub Trubaˇ c b , Vladislav Chrastn ´ y c , Vít Peníˇ zek a , Leslaw Teper d , Jerzy Cabala d , Andreas Voegelin e , Tereza Zádorová a , Vendula Oborná a , Ondˇ rej Drábek a , Ondˇ rej Holubík a , Jakub Houˇ ska a , Lenka Pavl ˚ u a , Christopher Ash a a Department of Soil Science and Soil Protection, Faculty of Agrobiology, Food and Natural Resources, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kam´ ycká 129, 165 21 Praha 6, Czech Republic b Institute of Geochemistry, Mineralogy and Mineral Resources, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Albertov 6, 128 43 Praha 2, Czech Republic c Department of Environmental Geosciences, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kam´ ycká 129, 165 21 Praha 6, Czech Republic d Department of Applied Geology, Faculty of Earth Sciences, University of Silesia, Bedzinska 60, 41-200 Sosnowiec, Poland e Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Ueberlandstrasse 133, CH-8600 Duebendorf, Switzerland h i g h l i g h t s • Thallium isotopes in industrial wastes from zinc metallurgy. • Thallium contamination in soils can be traced using isotopes. • Thallium isotope fractionation may occur in soil. • Sorption and/or precipitation pro- cesses are responsible for isotope redistribution. g r a p h i c a l a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 24 May 2017 Received in revised form 22 August 2017 Accepted 12 September 2017 Available online 12 September 2017 Keywords: Thallium Waste Soil Isotopes Fractionation a b s t r a c t Thallium (Tl) concentration and isotope data have been recorded for contaminated soils and a set of industrial wastes that were produced within different stages of Zn ore mining and metallurgical process- ing of Zn-rich materials. Despite large differences in Tl levels of the waste materials (1–500 mg kg −1 ), generally small changes in  205 Tl values have been observed. However, isotopically lighter Tl was recorded in fly ash ( 205 Tl ∼ −4.1) than in slag ( 205 Tl ∼ −3.3), implying partial isotope fractiona- tion during material processing. Thallium isotope compositions in the studied soils reflected the Tl contamination ( 205 Tl ∼ −3.8), despite the fact that the major pollution period ended more than 30 years ago. Therefore, we assume that former industrial Tl inputs into soils, if significant, can poten- tially be traced using the isotope tracing method. We also suggest that the isotope redistributions occurred in some soil (subsurface) horizons, with Tl being isotopically heavier than the pollution source, due to specific sorption and/or precipitation processes, which complicates the discrimination of ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: vaneka@af.czu.cz (A. Vanˇ ek). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2017.09.020 0304-3894/© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.