Speciation and cysteine-simplified physiological-based extraction technique (SBET) bioaccesibility of heavy metals in biosolids.

Cysteine residues on proteins have a high affinity for metals yet formulations used to determine bioaccessibility do not contain cysteine or thiol-containing molecules. As a result, we used a cysteine-simplified physiological-based extraction technique (SBET) and, the conventional glycine-SBET to determine bioaccesibility of selected heavy metals in biosolids and compared the data. We also determined speciation of the selected metals in the biosolids to assess further the health risk posed the use of biosolids as a soil amendment in agricultural soils.