Graduate Student Andrea Dorsa

"Heavy Metals in Soil: Hazards, Quantification, and Evaluation of Sources"

Trace amounts of some heavy metals are crucial to the functioning of different biological processes, but at high concentrations they can be detrimental to both the environment and human health. While heavy metals present themselves in soil through natural occurrences, industrialization has increased their quantities.[1] In this seminar, principal component analysis (PCA) is considered to propose the origins of heavy metals in soils. Additionally, a possible route for more convenient quantification of heavy metal concentrations is proposed in the form of portable x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (PXRF).

The recent increase in greenhouse agriculture makes it more important to know the levels of heavy metal contamination in soil that could lead to crop uptake. The concentrations of heavy metals are found by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) by Wei, B., et al.[2]. Heavy metals in greenhouse soils are mainly derived from fertilizer and manure application, accounting for 42.33% of the total variance of PCA.

While acid-digestion techniques such as ICP-MS are typically used to determine heavy metal concentrations, they can be time-consuming and are mainly performed in the laboratory. Utilizing PXRF for elemental determination can achieve rapid in situ and nondestructive analysis and is investigated by Tian, K., et al.[3] By comparing the insignificant differences between mean concentrations of heavy metals determined by both ICP-MS and PXRF, it is concluded that PXRF can be reliably used in quantifying trace concentrations of heavy metals in greenhouse soils.

(1) Paithankar, J. G., et al. Heavy metal associated health hazards: An interplay of oxidative stress and signal transduction. Chemosphere. 2021, 262, 128350.

(2) Wei, B., et al. The Availability and Accumulation of Heavy Metals in Greenhouse Soils Associated with Intensive Fertilizer Application. Int. J. Res. Public Health. 2020, 17, 5359.

(3) Tian, K., et al. In situ investigation of heavy metals at trace concentrations in greenhouse soils via portable X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. 2018, 25, 11011-11022.