Analysis of Heavy Metals in Soil from Burnt Computer Business Center

Abstract

Deliberate or accidental burning of materials containing heavy metals such as electronic components may result in serious environmental pollution. Burning of these materials is common in open waste dumps and sometimes during fire disasters. This paper looked at the determination of heavy metal concentration in soil samples at burnt computer business centre (A case study of PTI, Effurun). Soil samples were collected from the site and another sample from unaffected area as control. The samples were analyzed for the presence of copper, zinc, cadmium, lead and mercury using GBC Scientific AAS GF 3000. The result of the analysis shows that the concentrations of the heavy metals at the site are much higher than the control sample. The mean concentration of copper is 0.284ppm which is more than 2400 % higher than the control sample’s concentration of 0.011 ppm, lead 2.749 ppm higher by 50 %, cadmium 0.058 ppm higher by 222 %, and zinc 1.626 ppm higher by 80 %. Though the concentrations of the heavy metals analyzed are much higher than that of the control sample, yet they are less than the maximum permissible limits by World Health Organization (WHO) for soil except cadmium in samples C and E (0.09 ppm each) which is higher than the WHO maximum permissible limits of 0.06 ppm. Based on the results obtained, it can be concluded that there is an increase in concentration of heavy metals in the burnt computer business centre. Keywords: Heavy metals, burnt computer center, soil, pollution