DEPLETION OF LEAD IN THE SOIL OF A BATTERY FACTORY

Abstract

Lead pollution in soil of a battery making factory at two separate times was studied and reported in this work. Significant changes were noticed in the level of lead in the soil samples between the time of active production and the downtime. This reflects the important of follow period in phytoremediation of metal-contaminated soil as a method of environmental clean-up. Atomic absorption spectrophotometer (AAS) was employed in the estimation of lead content in the soil samples for the two periods.

A chemical fractionation of the metal in the soil samples were compared for necessary evaluation. Excessive total concentration of Pb ranging from 15293.12-16295.37_48/8 was generally recorded in the first study while a remarkable low level of total Pb concentration ranging from 21.11-54.81 (below the critical concentration established by federal environmental protection agent (FEPA) was recorded for the downtime. At first, solid phase speciation of the soils using tessier procedure showed that the Pb was distributed in the order: organic bound ˃ inorganic bound ˃ residual ˃ occluded by free oxide ˃ exchangeable which at later study showed redistribution in the order: organic bound ˃ inorganic bound ˃ residual ˃ exchangeable ˃ occluded by free oxide.