ATOMIC ABSORPTION SPECTROMETRIC DETERMINATION OF HEAVY METAL CONTENTS OF SOILS AROUND DIFFERENT HIGHWAYS IN TURKEY AND STATISTICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE DATA

ABSTRACT A totally 33 soil samples influenced mainly by traffic density collected from around of highways in various locations of Turkey were analyzed by FAAS using three different extractant solutions, namely; 0.1 M HCl, 1 M CH3COONH4, and aqua regia solutions for determining the concentrations of various physicochemical forms of metals (Cu, Pb, Cd, Fe, Ni, Mn, Cr, Co, Bi and Zn) which are acid-soluble, exchangeable, and total, respectively. Accuracy of the method was tested by spiking the known amount of the elements interested to soil extracts for each extraction procedure. The accuracy of results for each extraction procedure was found to be satisfactory. Also, the standard addition method was applied for the soil leachings obtained by using each extractant. The detection limits of metals for different extraction procedures were between 0.02 and 1.08 µg ml−1. Correlation analysis and principal component analysis were applied to the data matrix to evaluate the analytical results and to identify the possible pollution sources of metals.