Determination of Heavy Metals From Environment Samples By Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectrometry
Pages 38-44
Mariana Dobra, Vasile Viman
Abstract. In the studied area with geological and mining activities of ore extraction containing heavy metals, the environment is polluted with dusts resulted from these activities. From the technological processes of each stage, the environment accumulates sedimentable and suspension dusts, which contribute to the high pollution of air, soil and plants. The paper pursues the determination of Pb and Zn in the ore mines from the area, mining concentrations, sedimentable dusts from air, soil and plants of nettle and spinach. The analytical techniques used must have low detection limits, the lowest matrix effects possible and they must allow the determination, as precise as possible, of the major components as well as of the minor ones and in traces. We used the inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) and the atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) for the experimental determinations. BAIRD ICP 2070 and AAS 3 spectrometers were used. The experimental results show high concentrations of the two metals even in the sedimentable dusts in soils and plants. The distribution and the mobility of the heavy metals are determined by the environment in which they are emitted and by the type of combinations in which they are found. In the air, metal mobility will be determined by both the nature of chemical combinations in dusts and by the weather factors as wind and precipitations. The type of soil, organic material content, pH and the potential of oxidation-reduction determine the mobility in soil, while in plants mobility is determined by the specific biochemical mechanisms of each plant.