Comparison of soil and water pollution concentration determine using Aaomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS) and X-Ray fluorescence Radioisotope (XRF) Techniques

Abstract

The objective of this research was to determine the differences between XRF and AAS techniques and also to determine the most suitable techniques to identify the content of heavy metal. Materials used were from contaminated soil and water which contained heavy metal. Soil used was from closed dumping site whereas for water, it was taken from oxidation ponds. The contaminated material were be compared with uncontaminated material to analyses the contamination level. The tested heavy metals were Fe, Mn, K, Ca and Al. The results show contains of soil between XRF and AAS techniques are differences. With the XRF technique, the average concentration of Ca, Al and K are 2.74%, 15.54% and 9.54% whereas with AAS technique the average concentration of Ca and K are 115.25% and 84.37%. The contains of water using XRF technique shows the average concentration of Al, Fe, Mn and Ca from the collections of sample 3 are lower at XRF technique with 0.014mg/L, 0.089mg/L, 0.017mg/L and 6.756mg/L, respectively. With AAS technique in collection of sample 3, the average concentration of Al and Mn was increase with 1.784mg/L and 2.445mg/L, respectively but the concentration of Ca and Fe was decrease with 33.63mg/L and 2.06mg/L, respectively. AAS technique is the most suitable to use for identifying the content of heavy metals compared to XRF technique because when using the XRF technique, the result between the contaminated and uncontaminated soils did not show any difference whereas with AAS technique, the results were vast.