European Journal of Soil Science, October 2008, 59, 855862 doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2389.2008.01045.

Increase in the fracture toughness and bond energy of

clay by a root exudate

B. Z HANG a , P. D. H ALLETT c & G. Z HANG b

a
State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Science, PO Box 821,
Nanjing 210008, China; bInstitute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, PO Box 821, Nanjing 210008, China, and
c
Scottish Crop Research Institute, Invergowrie, Dundee DD2 5DA, UK

Summary
Root exudates help drive the formation of the rhizosphere by binding soil particles, but the underlying
physical mechanisms have not been quantied. This was addressed by measuring the impact of a major
component of root exudates, polygalacturonic acid (PGA), on the interparticle bond energy and fracture
toughness of clay. Pure kaolinite was mixed with 0, 1.2, 2.4, 4.9 or 12.2 g PGA kg
1 to form test speci-
mens. Half of the specimens were washed repeatedly to remove unbound PGA and evaluate the persistence
of the effects, similar to weathering in natural soils. Fracture toughness, KIC, increased exponentially
with added PGA, with washing increasing this trend. In unwashed specimens KIC ranged from
54.3  2.5 kPa m
1/2 for 0 g PGA kg
1 to 86.9  4.7 kPa m
1/2 for 12.2 g PGA kg
1. Washing
increased KIC to 61.3  1.2 kPa m
1/2 for 0 g PGA kg
1 and 132.1  4.9 kPa m
1/2 for 12.2 g PGA
kg
1. The apparent bond energy, g, of the fracture surface increased from 5.9  0.6 J m
2 for 0 g kg
1
to 12.0  1.1 J m
2 for 12.2 g kg
1 PGA in the unwashed specimens. The washed specimens had g of
13.0  1.9 J m
2 for 0 g kg
1 and 21.3  2.6 J m
2 for 12.2 g PGA kg
1. Thus PGA, a major compo-
nent of root exudates, has a large impact on the fracture toughness and bond energy of clay, and is
likely to be a major determinant in the formation of the rhizosphere. This quantication of the thermo-
dynamics of fracture will be useful for modelling rhizosphere formation and stability.

Introduction understanding of the underlying mechanical processes has

received much less attention.
Plant roots stabilize soil against physical disruption by en-
Particle binding in soil and its subsequent resistance to
meshing particles (McCully, 1999), altering cycles of wetting
mechanical breakdown can be quantied using approaches from
and drying (Czarnes et al., 2000b), and exuding mucilage that
materials science (Hallett et al., 1998). For instance, Lima &
aggregates and binds soil particles (Tisdall & Oades, 1979).
Grismer (1994) effectively used fracture mechanics to quantify
These processes drive the formation of the rhizosphere, there-
the impact of salinity on crack development and particle bind-
by increasing the functional capacity of soil for plant growth
ing in dry soil. Hallett et al. (1995) quantied the impact of
and environmental buffering (Gregory & Hinsinger, 1999).
soil texture on fracture mechanics. Later work measured the
Considerable research conducted on rhizosphere soil has
fracture mechanics of wet soil, which required an extension to
shown an increased physical stability based on an arbitrary
quantify plastic processes that regulate the thermodynamics of
amount of mechanical stress applied to soil aggregates that
fracture (Hallett & Newson, 2001, 2005). Fracture mechanics
remain adhered to plant roots (Alami et al., 2000; Czarnes
is far more powerful than traditional methods that measure
et al., 2000a; Traore et al., 2000; Caravaca et al., 2002; Kaci
the tensile strength or aggregate stability of soil as physically
et al., 2005). There are clearly increases to particle binding in
meaningful parameters are obtained that can be used to model
the rhizosphere that drive soil stabilization and consequently
structure development (Snyder & Miller, 1985; Lima &
root-soil interactions (Czarnes et al., 2000a). Whilst these stud-
Grismer, 1994). Moreover, the impact of pre-existing cracks
ies have demonstrated that rhizosphere soil is generally far
that dene the soil pore structure can be considered (Ayad
more stable to physical stresses than bulk soil, a quantitative
et al., 1997). Approaches from powder technology that are
based on fracture mechanics could also be employed to
Correspondence: P. D. Hallett. E-mail: paul.hallett@scri.ac.uk describe soil aggregation processes and mechanical stabiliza-
Received 21 May 2007; revised version accepted 3 March 2008 tion (Abdel-Ghani et al., 1991; Birchall et al., 1998).

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Journal compilation # 2008 British Society of Soil Science 855
856 B. Zhang et al.
No study has evaluated the impact of biological exudates like
root exudates on particle binding and fracture mechanics. Pre-
vious studies have used polygalacturonic acid, PGA, as an ana-
logue of root mucilage, to evaluate its impact on soil stability,
with positive correlations found between the amount of added
PGA and soil tensile strength (Czarnes et al., 2000b) or water
stability (Traore et al., 2000). The long-term persistence of
biological exudates on soil tensile strength was investigated
by Chenu & Guerif (1991), who applied scleroglucan as an
analogue of fungal exudates to soil and simulated wetting
cycles by washing the soil-exudate mix to remove the fraction
that was not bound to particles.
In this study we quantied the impact of PGA, as a model root
exudate, on soil fracture mechanics. The parameters quantied
were, fracture toughness, KIC, which is a measure of the resis-
tance to crack growth, elastic modulus, E, which denes the
relationship between stress and strain, and apparent bond
energy, g, which is the energy required to create a new surface
by cracking. Different concentrations of PGA were mixed with
kaolinite to form test specimens for fracture testing. Kaolinite
was chosen for this initial study to improve homogeneity be-
tween specimens and to remove the impact of natural organic
compounds in soil that may inuence mechanical behaviour.
One batch of specimens was washed repeatedly to evaluate the
effect of wetting cycles on the persistence and redistribution of
root exudates on fracture mechanics. We hypothesized that
particle binding and fracture toughness would be positively
correlated with the amount of root exudate. Washing of the
soil was hypothesized to remove unbound PGA, but the more
homogeneous distribution and adsorption of PGA after wash-
ing should increase KIC and g. The work will help unravel the
complex processes involved in the formation of the rhizo-
sphere and provide quantitative data that could be used in
future models of soil structure genesis.
Material and methods
Preparation of specimens
Test specimens were formed by mixing dry pure kaolinite
(Supreme Powder, English China Clay, St Austell, UK) with
polygalacturonic acid (PGA;(C6H8O6)n; Fluka BioChemika
81325, EC No. 2116826, Gillingham, UK) solution. Other
studies have identied PGA as a model root exudate (Gessa
et al., 1997; Grimal et al., 2001). PGA was made soluble by the
addition of 0.46 ml 1M KOH per 100 mg of PGA (Czarnes
et al., 2000b). The solution was diluted with deionised water
so that PGA concentrations of 0, 1.2, 2.4, 4.9 and 12.2 g PGA
kg
1 soil would be obtained in dried specimens. Clay pastes
were formed at 90% liquid limit (640 g kg
1) of pure kaolin-
ite. Sodium azide (50 mg kg
1) was added to minimize micro-
bial growth. The pastes were mixed with a heavy duty kitchen
mixer for 10 minutes and then sealed in plastic bags for 2 days
and stored at 20  1C.
# 2008 The Authors
Journal compilation # 2008 British Society of Soil Science, European Journal of Soil Science, 59, 855862
Two paste batches were formed for each concentration:
(i) unwashed batches were formed into test specimens with no
further treatment; and (ii) washed batches were mixed with deion-
ised water and centrifuged to remove non-absorbed or non-
reversibly adsorbed PGA. Washing involved diluting the paste
to 50 g kg
1 solids, mixing thoroughly with a spatula to obtain
a suspension, waiting 2 days for the suspension to settle, remov-
ing the supernatant above the settled soil by decanting, centri-
fuging at 12000 g for 10 minutes and adding deionised water to
return to the initial water content. This was repeated twice.
The pastes were formed into deep-notch bend specimens
by remoulding into rectangular moulds with a dimension of
140 mm long, L, 31 mm thick, B, and 34 mm wide, W. The
moulds were built of aluminium and lined with cut acetate
sheet folded on the inside to allow for easy removal of the
specimen with minimal damage. Remoulding involved smear-
ing the specimen along the longest axis in depth increments of
23 mm, with care taken to avoid bubbles. The specimen was
removed in the acetate sheet liner and dried rst at room tem-
perature (20C) for 24 hours and then at 40C until water loss
ceased. Ten replicates were formed for each treatment.
Fracture testing
Figure 1 illustrates the fracture specimen, the symbols used to
describe specimen dimensions and the test conguration. To
overcome the effect of the crack-tip process zone size on fracture
toughness that Hallett et al. (1995) identied, a large crack
length, a, to width, W, ratio was used. A crack, a, 12 mm long
(0.35 a/W), was cut into the centre of the dry specimen with
a hacksaw blade that was restrained from lateral movement in
a mitre block. The crack tip was sharpened by running a razor
blade across its surface several times. Special care was taken to
impose minimal compressive stress during cutting, as this
could pre-strain the specimen and induce microcracking.
The specimen was fractured using the three-point bend
test, which is commonly used for engineering materials ranging
from steel to concrete (British Standards Institution, 1991).
It was supported at the base using two rollers, with a span
Figure 1 Deep notch three-point bend test used for fracture mecha-
nics testing. The specimen is exed between a top roller and two
bottom rollers separated by distance S. The width, W, thickness, b,
and crack length, a, are shown.

distance, S, of 70 mm (i.e. 50% of the specimen length) so that
self-weight was balanced. Testing was conducted using an
INSTRON mechanical test frame (Model 5544; INSTRON,
Canton, MA). During testing, the upper load-point illustrated
in Figure 1 was lowered, causing the specimen to ex and
eventually fracture. The cross-head displacement and force,
P, was recorded using Merlin software (INSTRON, Canton,
MA). The cross-head speed was set to 1 mm minute
1 for all
specimens (Hallett et al., 1998). The load cell had a range of
50 N and was accurate to 1% at 1/250 maximum load.
Soil analysis
The amount of the model root exudate, PGA, in the specimens
was estimated from a direct measurement of carbon. Each PGA
and washing treatment and all replicates were measured for car-
bon with a continuous ow mass spectrometer consisting of an
ANCA SL sample converter attached to a 20/20 isotope ratio-
mass spectrometer (Europa Scientic, Crewe, UK). pH was
determined using a 1:5 ratio mixture of soil and water. Linear
shrinkage, liquid limit and plastic limit were determined accord-
ing to the British Standards Institution (1975).
Fracture mechanics
A thorough description of the fracture mechanics of dry soil can
be found in Lima & Grismer (1994) and Hallett et al. (1995). The
failure stress, rF, was determined by
3PMAX S
rF 2
; 1
2BW
a
with a taken as the value at the onset of testing and PMAX the
maximum applied force recorded from the load cell (Lima &
Grismer, 1994). Failure stress is inuenced by both particle
bonding and pre-existing cracks in soil. The impact of these two
properties can be separated by analysing data from the three-
point bend tests with fracture mechanics, as described below.
Fracture mechanics parameters were quantied using
approaches described in BS 74481: 1991 (British Standards
Institution, 1991). Fracture toughness, KIC, is related to rF by
p
the simple relationship KIC rF Y a, where Y accounts for
specimen geometry. The geometry of a three-point bend speci-
men can be accounted for using the equations
PMAX S a
KIC 1:5
f ; 2
BW W
where
 a 0:5 h  a  a  3:93a 2:7a2 i
a 3 1:99
1
2:15

f W W

W W W2
W 2a  a 1:5
2 1 1

W W
3 In both the unwashed and washed specimens, carbon content
The fracture toughness indicates the capacity of a material
to resist the growth of a crack. Diamonds are an example of
Journal compilation # 2008 British Society of Soil Science, European Journal of Soil Science, 59, 855862
Root exudate impact on soil fracture 857
a material with considerable strength but very poor fracture
toughness.
Another important parameter to quantify is the elastic mod-
ulus, E. It describes the rigidity of a material through the rela-
tionship E r/e, where strain, e, is the change in specimen
length versus its original length. We estimated E from the
slope of the force-displacement curve in the three-point bend
tests using the relationship
@P S3
E  ; 4
@q 4BW
a3
where q is the cross-head displacement. Instron Merlin soft-
ware calculated the slope @P=@q automatically for the linear
portion of the force-displacement curve.
Knowledge of both KIC and E provides powerful informa-
tion for assessing the energetics behind fracture. The critical
strain energy release rate at fracture, Gc, denes the energy
required to propagate a crack and can be approximated from
KIC 2
Gc : 5
E
From this the bond energy, g, can be determined as
Gc 2g: 6
Scanning electron microscope images
Soil was taken from the fracture surface and coated with gold so
that particle packing and aggregation could be assessed using
a Sirion scanning electron microscope (Sirion, Tampa, FL).
Gold coating involved a 70-second treatment in a SCD 005
Sputter Coater (Bal-Tec GmbH, Balzers, Germany) at a current
of 40 mA, followed by ushing the working chamber with argon
gas several times. This provided a qualitative assessment of
the extreme treatments, i.e. 0, 1.2 and 12.2 g PGA kg
1 for
unwashed and washed specimens.
Results
Specimen properties
Experimental error between the desired and actual amount of
PGA added to the kaolinite was minimal as determined from the
carbon content (P > 0.05; Figure 2). The kaolinite without
added PGA contained carbon that was accounted for in the
calculations of total carbon in the amended specimens. Wash-
ing the kaolinite removed a considerable amount of carbon
: (P < 0.001), causing the specimens with 4.9 g PGA kg
1 or less
to drop to almost the amount in the 0 g PGA kg
1 specimens.
increased with added PGA (P < 0.05).
Table 1 lists other physical properties of the specimens. The
water content of the specimens at testing was 6 g kg
1, with no
# 2008 The Authors
858 B. Zhang et al.

7 Fracture toughness, KIC

6 Adding PGA to kaolinite increased KIC (Figure 4). The addi-

tion of 12.2 g PGA kg
1 almost doubled the fracture tough-
5 ness of kaolinite before washing. For any amount of added
Carbon /g kg1

PGA, washing increased the fracture toughness further. The

4 KIC followed the same relationship that Birchall et al. (1987)
found for a particulate system mixed with a binder,
3
 
2
KIC;PGA KIC;Soil c 1
dPGA ; 7

1 where c and d are tting parameters, and [PGA] is the concen-

0 values for these parameters.
0 1.2 2.4 4.9
Added PGA /g kg1 Soil
Figure 2 The desired (black), actual (grey) and post-washing (white)
carbon content on the kaolinite amended with polygalacturonic acid,
PGA. The background carbon content of the kaolinite was accounted
for, as shown by the bars for the 0 g kg
1 treatment. Each bar is the
mean of 10 replicates (1 SE).
difference between treatments. Liquid limits were not inu-
enced by PGA or washing and although statistical differences
were found for the plastic limit (P < 0.01), the water content
difference was less than 3% between the extremes. Linear
shrinkage was inuenced signicantly by both the amount of
PGA and washing, with signicant interaction (P < 0.001).
However, the amount of linear shrinkage in all specimens was
small, with a maximum difference of 0.37 m 100 m
1. A small
number of specimens cracked during drying and these were
excluded from testing.
Failure stress, rF
The failure stress of pure kaolinite was about 720 kPa for both
washed and unwashed specimens (Figure 3). It increased mark-
edly by adding PGA, with an overall greater increase following
washing the kaolinite. The specimens with 12.2 g kg
1 added
PGA were 1.7 and 2.4 times stronger than the pure kaolinite
for the unwashed and washed treatments, respectively.
tration of added PGA to soil (g kg
1). Table 2 lists the tted
12.2
Elastic modulus, E
A clear trend between the amount of added PGA and the
elastic modulus, E, was not found for the unwashed specimens
(Figure 5). For unwashed specimens the addition of 1.2 g
PGA kg
1 resulted in the greatest increase in E, with further
addition of PGA diminishing E. There was a clearer trend for
the washed specimens, where E generally increased with the
amount of added PGA.
Apparent bond energy, g
The apparent bond energy, g, generally increased with added
PGA but the results for 1.2 g PGA kg
1 for both washing
treatments obscured any trend (Figure 6). Washing the clay
and adding 12.2 g PGA kg
1 more than tripled the bond
energy compared with the unwashed control specimen.
Scanning electron micrographs
A visual assessment of SEM images showed that the unwashed
specimen with 0 g kg
1 added PGA had a dispersed structure
with little aggregation (Figure 7). The addition of the smallest
and largest amounts of PGA, 1.2 g kg
1 and 12.2 g kg
1,
respectively, enhanced aggregation, although differences be-
tween them were not evident. Washing promoted aggregation,
even for 0 g kg
1, with increased PGA concentration leading

Table 1 Properties of kaolinite amended with different amounts of polygalacturonic acid, PGA

Linear shrinkage/m 100 m
1 pH

Added PGA Liquid limit Plastic limit
/g kg
1 /g kg
1 /g kg
1 Unwashed Washed Unwashed Washed

0 733  22a 367  1 3.20  0.02 3.44  0.03 8.0 7.5

1.2 707  56 344  4 3.19  0.01 3.40  0.02 7.3 7.5
2.4 696  33 341  33 3.24  0.02 3.36  0.04 7.0 7.6
4.9 722  54 345  2 3.38  0.01 3.47  0.03 5.8 7.8
12.2 790  82 361  3 3.38  0.03 3.10  0.02 4.6 7.9
a
The standard error of the mean is shown.

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Journal compilation # 2008 British Society of Soil Science, European Journal of Soil Science, 59, 855862
 Root exudate impact on soil fracture 859

2000 Table 2 Fitted parameters relating added PGA to KIC for washed and
unwashed specimens (Equation 7)
1800
Treatment c D KIC, Soil R2
1600
Unwashed 69.2 0.92 53.3 0.99
1400
Washed 95.9 0.92 69.4 0.84
F /kPa

1200

1000
800
600
400
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Added PGA /g kg1
Figure 3 Failure stress, rF, of the unwashed (black) and washed
(white) kaolinite specimens with different amounts of added poly-
galacturonic acid, PGA. Bars over the symbols are the standard error
of the means (n 10).
to further increases in aggregation. The washed 12.2 g kg
1
appeared to have the greatest aggregation of all the treatments.
Discussion
The large increase in fracture toughness caused by the addition
of PGA demonstrated the potential of root exudates to change
the mechanical behaviour of dry kaolinite. Based on Equations
5 and 6, almost three times the energy was needed to rupture
unwashed specimens with 12.2 g PGA kg
1 than for pure
kaolinite. Based on measurements of root exudates from Zea
mays into soil by Kuzyakov et al. (2003), the range of PGA
added to soil in the current study was 1 to 10 times the root
exudate contents in the rhizosphere. Cycles of wetting, which
were simulated by washing the clay repeatedly, enhanced the
impact of PGA concentration on fracture toughness, despite
the leaching of some PGA (Figure 2; Table 2).
The impact of PGA on fracture toughness was a result of
14
interactions with clay particles. PGA made pH more acidic in
the unwashed samples, which may have caused a shift from
negative to positive net total particle surface charge (Kretzschmar
et al., 1997). As this would increase edge-face bonding, the
contact area between clay particles and hence bond energy
would be expected to decrease by the action of pH alone.
Wang & Xu (2007) reported greater compressibility of kaolin-
ite with decreasing pH. Shrinkage on drying and compressibil-
ity are analogous (Vogel et al., 2005) and our linear shrinkage
results showed greater shrinkage with increasing PGA for the
unwashed specimens. Although this may counteract the effects
of increased edge-face bonding, the difference in shrinkage
from 0 g PGA kg
1 to 12.2 g PGA kg
1 samples was only
0.19 m 100 m
1 and the trend was not observed for the
washed specimens, so the impact of shrinkage on porosity and
hence mechanical behaviour was likely to be negligible.
It was likely that the polymer structure of PGA acted as
a glue between clay particles, as the fracture tests showed a
positive impact of PGA concentration on fracture toughness.
Mikutta et al. (2004) observed that PGA clogged pores in

400
160

140
Elastic Modulus /MPa

300

120
KIC /kPa m1/2

200
100

80
100

60

40 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Added PGA /g kg1 Added PGA /g kg1

Figure 4 Fracture toughness, KIC, of the unwashed (black) and Figure 5 Elastic modulus, E, of the unwashed (black) and washed
washed (white) kaolinite specimens with different amounts of added (white) kaolinite specimens with different amounts of added poly-
polygalaturonic acid, PGA. Bars over the symbols are the standard galacturonic acid, PGA. Bars over the symbols are the standard error
error of the means (n 10). of the means (n 10).

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Journal compilation # 2008 British Society of Soil Science, European Journal of Soil Science, 59, 855862
860 B. Zhang et al.

35 et al., 1997). Moreover, after washing PGA may be more

homogeneously distributed in the clay, with the removal of
Apparent Bond Energy, /J m2

30 excess PGA from between clay particles. Thinner layers of

25
20
15
10
5
0 (1991) supports this argument, as they found the impact of
0 2 4 6 8 10
Added PGA /g kg1
Figure 6 Apparent bond energy, g, of the unwashed (black) and
washed (white) kaolinite specimens with different amounts of added
polygalacturonic acid, PGA. Bars over the symbols are the standard
error of the means (n 10).
AlOOH, thus producing bridges between particles. This
would increase the contact surface area and thus the fracture
toughness through PGA adhesion (Johnson et al., 1971).
With washing, fracture toughness increased further for kao-
linite amended with PGA. The physical process of washing
provided a dispersed liquid environment that could have
increased the potential for clay occulation (Tarchitzky &
Chen, 2002). Increased pH with washing may have increased
face-face bonding and hence the bond energy (Kretzschmar
PGA would provide the same adhesion, with the decreased
particle separation distance increasing the contribution from
Van der Waals forces.
Research by Czarnes et al. (2000b) showed that 1.2 g PGA
kg
1 caused a much greater increase in the failure stress of
a natural sandy loam than our study found for kaolinite. This
difference is probably due to the presence of 2:1 clay minerals,
where overlap between the quasicrystals is greater than for 1:1
kaolinite (Tessier et al., 1990). Research by Chenu & Guerif
12 14 organic compounds on failure stress to be much greater for
montmorillonite than for kaolinite.
For kaolinite, Chenu & Guerif (1991) showed that the fungal
exudate scleroglucan, at similar concentrations to the PGA
tested here, had a much greater impact on failure stress (reported
as modulus of rupture). Secondary microbial metabolites pro-
duced in the rhizosphere may therefore be more important for
structural stabilization than root exudates. This was demon-
strated by Alami et al. (2000) and Kaci et al. (2005), who both
found more rhizosphere aggregation in a sterile soil amended
with Rhizobium than in the control. However, the impact of
microbial polysaccharides requires greater investigation as
Czarnes et al. (2000a) found dextran to reduce failure stress
and xanthan to have a lesser effect than PGA on failure stress
at similar concentrations. One reason for this difference could
be the ionic structure of PGA versus the non-ionic structure of
both xanthan and dextran.

Figure 7 SEM images of the test specimens. The scale is marked on each image.

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Journal compilation # 2008 British Society of Soil Science, European Journal of Soil Science, 59, 855862

An energetic analysis of the fracture data based on KIC
requires knowledge of E (Equation 4). As E depends on the
relationship between the applied stress and the deformation of
the specimen, specimen microstructure should have a greater
impact on E than KIC. The combination of microaggregation
and particle binding in the unwashed specimens could explain
the sharp rise in E for 1.2 g kg
1 PGA followed by subsequent
decline as the amount of added PGA increased. Although
microaggregation and particle bonding are linked, micro-
aggregation results in more densely packed structural singular-
ities (aggregates) separated by microcracks. Microaggregation
should decrease E as microcracks will deform under stress. On
the other hand, particle bonding in the absence of micro-
aggregation should increase E. However, microaggregation
observed from the SEM images did not support this argument
as it did not appear to change between 1.2 g kg
1 and 12.2 g
kg
1 added PGA. For the washed specimens aggregation was
evident even in the controls and adding PGA probably further
increased E through interaggregate and particle bonding.
The reliability of the apparent bond energy data will be af-
fected by E (Equations 5, 6). Nevertheless, a trend of increasing
g with increasing PGA was found for all but 1.2 g PGA kg
1
specimens. Knowing g would be extremely valuable in soil
science as it is a basic thermodynamic property that is commonly
used in aggregation models of other materials (Haw et al.,
1995). In particle agglomerates like soil, g determined from
fracture tests is different from the actual bond energy because
energy is wasted through plastic processes such as friction and
microcracking (Johnson et al., 1971; Hallett et al., 1995).
Attempts to upscale g that operates between particles to the
behaviour of particle agglomerates have therefore given poor
estimates, so the actual testing of agglomerates is required.
The fracture test employed here evaluated KIC effectively.
Specimen size can inuence results because of the impact of
boundary conditions. Compliance testing using the relation-
ship a, b, W > 2.5 (KIC/rF)2 (British Standards Institution,
1991) showed that the specimens were compliant but on the
boundary of being too small, so the testing of larger specimens
is recommended. An important property of the specimens
tested was the large a/W. This minimizes the impact of the pro-
cess zone size at the crack tip on the evaluation of KIC (Hallett
et al., 1995). Comparable data on the KIC of pure kaolinite do
not exist. The most similar data were reported by Hallett et al.
(1995) for a 60:40 mixture of kaolinite and sand where KIC was
26 kPa m1/2. They found KIC to decrease with increased sand
content, which explains why greater values were obtained in
the current study. Nichols & Grismer (1997) reported similar
KIC for remoulded silty-clay soils. Previous research examining
the mechanical stabilization of soil by organic compounds has
reported the results primarily as failure stress, which some of
the papers refer to as modulus of rupture.
There is considerable scope to conduct more research on the
impact of organic compounds on fracture mechanics. Testing of
different organic compounds and soil minerals would provide
Journal compilation # 2008 British Society of Soil Science, European Journal of Soil Science, 59, 855862
Root exudate impact on soil fracture 861
valuable data for aggregation and cracking models (Vogel et al.,
2005). Such model tests allow for better control and replica-
tion of the specimens, but the practical signicance of the
work would improve by testing the impact of roots and micro-
organisms on the fracture mechanics of natural soils. This
might be possible using an experimental set-up similar to
Alami et al. (2000) and harvesting rhizosphere soil to form into
fracture specimens (Figure 1). The impact of water potential
on fracture behaviour also needs to be considered. Consolidating
the soil under a compressive load rather than letting it air-dry
might help alleviate problems encountered with microaggrega-
tion inuencing E.
Conclusions
Our experiments demonstrated that PGA, a major component
of root exudates, has a great capacity to increase bond energy
and fracture toughness of clay. Weathering of soil, simulated by
washing the clay repeatedly, increased fracture toughness and
bond energy further, suggesting that the changes were persistent.
The ultimate outcome of this type of research is the capacity to
quantify bonding by exudates in soil and the subsequent
impact on fragmentation. These data are useful for understand-
ing the formation of soil structure from its basic thermodynamic
properties.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the Royal Society and
Chinese Academy of Sciences as well as the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (40520130223), who funded the
academic exchange between our institutions. We are extremely
grateful to Pierre Barre, who provided valuable comments when
revising the manuscript. Dennis Gordon is thanked for his help
in developing the fracture test equipment. The Scottish Crop
Research Institute is grant-aided by the Scottish Government
Rural and Environment Research and Analysis Directerate.
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