Chemical Speciation: A Strategic Pathway for Insightful Risk Assessment and Decision Making for Remediation of Toxic Metal Contamination

Abstract

<p>Industrial and anthropogenic activities have resulted in high levels of metallic contaminants in the environment, thus creating imbalance in the biotic and abiotic regimes of the ecosystem. This has remained as a stabbing problem in the mind of environmental and agricultural scientists, since metallic contaminants unlike biodegradable contaminants are persistent in affecting the biophysical population of our environment. This problem requires an insightful assessment before the best remediation option can be selected appropriately. In this paper, we present an overview of chemical speciation and its adaptations in environmental cleanup for achieving result oriented remediation technique.</p

Fractionation of Pb in Soil of Abandoned Pb Mine by SEM-EDX and XRD

“…This is because accurate description of complex interactions of Pb forms in soils is a pre-requisite tool in predicting their behaviour in soil environment (Selim and Spark, 2001;Adamu et al, 2013). The dispersion of Pb contaminants from the abandoned mine site into the immediate surroundings depends on its release and transport tendencies (Salomons, 1995;Selim and Spark 2001).…”

“…Therefore, characterisation of Pb in soil should go beyond a simple determination of total content. This is because total metal concentrations provide little or no insightful information on the potential mobility and bioavailability of toxic metals (Arenas-Lago et al, 2015;Adamu et al, 2013;Adamu et al, 2011). It is the geochemical phases of toxic metals that will yield information more pertinent in the transfer of metals along soil-waterplant-animal-human chain (Rattan et al, 2005;Salomons, 1995).…”

Characterization of Arsenic Biotransformation Products from an Open Anaerobic Degradation of Fucus distichus by Hydride Generation Gas Chromatography Atomic Absorption Spectrometry and High Performance Liquid Chromatography Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry

“…Many analytical techniques have been developed for chemical speciation of elements in the environmental samples [4,5,16]. During the last two decades substantial progress has been made in incorporating separation methods with powerful detection methods for reliable quantitative measurements [17,18]. High performance chromatography (HPLC) is one of the most common methods used for separation of nonvolatile analytes and has been extensively coupled with atomic spectroscopy for quantification.…”

“…Moreover, HPLC and GC were successfully coupled with ICP-MS and now referred to as hyphenated technique for speciation analysis. This technique is now the most frequently used analytical technique for speciation purposes [5,17,18].…”

“…High performance chromatography (HPLC) is one of the most common methods used for separation of nonvolatile analytes and has been extensively coupled with atomic spectroscopy for quantification. In addition, the HPLC separation of arsenic species has been coupled with online microwave digestion and hydride generation to facilitate the direct determination of reducible and nonreducible forms of arsenic [18]. The other convenient method for online coupling is inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES), which is sometimes referred to as ICP-Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES) and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS).…”