The Determination of Chemical Forms of Heavy Metals in Shooting Area Contaminated Soil Using Sequential Extraction Method

Abstract

The soil sample obtained from shooting area contaminated with Pb, Cu, and Zn was investigated to determine the chemical forms of heavy metals with Tessier’s sequential extraction method, which is constituted of five fractions such as ‘exchangeable’, ‘bound to carbonate’, ‘bound to oxide’, ‘bound to organic matter’, and residual fractions. The amount of organic matter was measured by loss on ignition (LOI) and then the results of ‘bound to organic matter’ and LOI were compared. The sequential extraction results show that 4.7%-45% of Pb, 6.2%-25.9% of Cu and 3.9%-15.3% of Zn belong to the ‘bound to organic matter’ fraction, but LOI result shows that only 1.0%-2.8% of organic matter exists in the soil sample. In heavy medium separation tests, because Pb and Cu extracted in ‘bound to organic matter’ and residual fractions were removed, the heavy metals in the fractions would exist as heavier forms. These results suggest that the part of heavy metal extracted in ‘bound to organic matter’ fraction would result from the oxidation of metallic forms by hydrogen peroxide and nitric acid used in the fraction, and, consequently, that the ‘bound to organic matter’ fraction should be investigated in detail to determine the removal method and treatment capacity when the Tessier’s sequential extraction method is used to examine heavy metal contaminants resulted from elemental metal like bullets.