Effects of molasses-based microbial dust suppressant on soil dust and microbial community

This study aims at the practical needs of soil dust control and molasses resource utilization. By adding molasses to the soil and combining it with the components of microbial dust suppressants, it explores its impact on the surface soil dust suppression performance and microbial communities. The results show that after spraying treatment, the soil surface hardness is positively correlated with the molasses concentration, the surface hardness is the highest (41.14 HA) when the molasses concentration is 10%; the anti-wind erosion effect shows a trend of first increasing and then decreasing with the molasses concentration, the anti-rain erosion effect needs to be improved; microbial community analysis show that molasses significantly affected the relative abundance of soil microbial community, and appropriate addition (1%) could optimize the microbial community structure and enhance the functions of carbohydrate and energy metabolism pathways, and the abundance of pathogenic species increased when the molasses concentration was higher (above 5%). Therefore, considering the dust suppression effect and environmental safety, a dust suppressant with a molasses concentration of 1% is more suitable for dust suppression. However, the synergistic pathway and mechanism of dust suppression through the interaction between molasses and MICP technology need to be further explored. [Display omitted] •Molasses based dust suppressants can effectively suppress soil dust.•The enrichment of soil microbial communities in different depth soil layers by using molasses dust suppressants.•The concentration of molasses affects the changes in microbial abundance and diversity.