Metals components trace elements

Chemical Properties. Elemental analysis, impurity content, and stoichiometry are determined by chemical or iastmmental analysis. The use of iastmmental analytical methods (qv) is increasing because these ate usually faster, can be automated, and can be used to determine very small concentrations of elements (see Trace AND RESIDUE ANALYSIS). Atomic absorption spectroscopy and x-ray fluorescence methods are the most useful iastmmental techniques ia determining chemical compositions of inorganic pigments. Chemical analysis of principal components is carried out to determine pigment stoichiometry. Analysis of trace elements is important. The presence of undesirable elements, such as heavy metals, even in small amounts, can make the pigment unusable for environmental reasons. 

Sediment Analysis. Sediment is the most chemically and biologically active component of the aquatic environment. Benthic invertebrate and microbial life concentrate in the sediment, a natural sink for precipitated metal forms, and an excellent sorbent for many metal species. TTie extent to which potentially toxic trace element forms bind to sediment is determined by the sediment s binding intensity and capacity and various solution parameters, as well as the concentration and nature of the metal forms of interest. Under some conditions sediment analyses can readily indicate sources of discharged trace elements. 

Most primary and secondary minerals found in soil systems are barely soluble in the soil solution. The amount of mass from the bulk phase to hydrated ions in soil solution is negligible compared to the total mass of the solid phase. In arid and semi-arid soils, concentrations of most trace metals in soil solution may be controlled by their carbonates and to some extent by their hydroxides. Other than carbonates, trace elements in arid and semi-arid soils may also occur as sulfate, phosphate or siliceous compounds, or as a minor component adsorbed on the surface of various solid phase components. The solubility of carbonates, sulfates and other common minerals of trace elements in arid and semi-arid soils will be discussed in Chapter 5. Badawy et al. (2002) reported that in near neutral and alkaline soils representative of alluvial, desertic and calcareous soils of Egypt, the measured Pb2+ activities were undersaturated with regard to the solubility of... 

There are a number of selective sequential dissolution procedures which have been developed for specific elements, matrices, regional soils, and specific purposes (Table 4.1). Additionally, various extractants are used in different sequential procedures for the similar targeted solid-phase component. The review on the extractants of individual fractions of metals in soil was made by Shuman (1991). However, in most protocols the trace elements/heavy metals in their native and waste-amended soils are divided into the following physicochemical forms ... 

The carbonate-bound trace elements are usually extracted by NaOAc-HOAc (Tessier et al., 1979 Hickey and Kittrick, 1984 Banin et. al., 1990 and Han et al., 1992) or by using chelating agents, such as EDTA (Sposito et al., 1982 Emmerich et al., 1982 Miller and Mcfee, 1983 Chang et al., 1984 Knudtsen and O Connor, 1987 McGrath and Cegarra, 1992). Generally, EDTA lacks the required specificity and selectivity for carbonate phase extractions and tends to extract metals from a number of soil components. 

The cumulative sums of selected major and trace metals extracted by the two SSD procedures from representative arid-zone soils are shown in Fig. 4.6. As can be seen from the figure, the Rehovot procedure is stronger in attacking desired fractions, such as the carbonate bound, Mn oxide bound and organically bound fractions. Extraction of certain major elements, indicating selectivity, specificity and completeness of extraction of given soil components, was found to differ between the two procedures. Calcium and Mg were more completely extracted from the carbonate fraction in arid zone soils by the Rehovot procedure. Calcium and relevant trace elements bound in the carbonate fraction, which were not completely dissolved by the Bonn procedure at this step, were released at the following steps, such as the ERO, OM or RO fractions. 

Trace elements can be adsorbed on the surface of calcite, influencing their solubility in calcareous soils of arid and semi-arid zones. The carbonate bound fraction is the major solid-phase component for many trace elements (Cd, Pb, Zn, Ni and Cu) in arid and semi-arid soils, especially in newly contaminated soils (Table 5.3). In Israeli arid soils treated with metal nitrates, the carbonate bound fraction is the largest solid-phase component (60-80%, 50-60%, 40-60%, 30-40%, and 25-36% for Cd, Pb, Zn, Ni, and Cu respectively). Divalent metallic cations at low aqueous concentrations first associate with calcite via adsorption reactions. Then they may be incorporated into the calcite lattice as a co-precipitate by recrystallization (Franklin and Morse, 1983 Komicker et al., 1985 Davis et al., 1987 Zachara et al., 1988 Reeder and Prosky, 1986 Pingitore and... 

Kingery W.L, Oppenheimer S.F., Elan F.X., Selim H.M. Adsorption/desorption hysteresis of trace metals with soil components A Dynamical systems approach. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on the Biogeochemistry of Trace Elements, Vienna, Austria. 1999. 

Figure 7.1. Elovich model (b), respectively. Soils were incubated under the saturation paste regime (modified after Han et al., 2002b. Reprinted from J Environ Sci Health, Part A, 137, Han F.X., Banin A., Kingery W.L., Li Z.P., Pathways and kinetics of transformation of cobalt among solid-phase components in arid-zone soils, p 192, Copyright (2003), with permission from Taylor Francis). Trace element concentrations in plants on California Donimo soil (pH 7.5) amended with metal sulfate-enriched sludge (Data from Mitchell et al., 1978).

Probably the most effective use of XRF and TXRF continues to be in the analysis of samples of biological origin. For instance, TXRF has been used without a significant amount of sample preparation to determine the metal cofactors in enzyme complexes [86]. The protein content in a number of enzymes has been deduced through a TXRF of the sulfur content of the component methionine and cysteine [87]. It was found that for enzymes with low molecular weights and minor amounts of buffer components that a reliable determination of sulfur was possible. In other works, TXRF was used to determine trace elements in serum and homogenized brain samples [88], selenium and other trace elements in serum and urine [89], lead in whole human blood [90], and the Zn/Cu ratio in serum as a means to aid cancer diagnosis [91]. 

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