ANALYSIS OF TRACE METALS IN INDUSTRIAL FERTILIZERS

ABSTRACT Industrial fertilizers were used to study selected essential and non-essential metals by two analytical techniques, namely atomic absorption spectroscopy and neutron activation analysis. Out of eight metals namely Pb, Cu, Fe, Zn, Ni, Cd, Mn and Cr, which were determined by atomic absorption technique, Fe showed maximum concentration, whereas Cd and Pb showed minimum value. In the case of neutron activation analysis, 16 elements namely Cr, Fe, Zn, Co, Th, Sc, La, Ba, Rb, Cs, Sb, Yb, Ce, Mn, Na and Eu were analyzed. In this group, Na exhibited maximum concentration value, while Sb and Eu showed the minimum value. Cr, Fe, Zn and Mn were the four commonly studied elements by the two techniques. Within this group, Fe showed the highest concentration values, while the lowest was shown in the case of Cr. The comparison of overall data generally showed lower concentrations of trace metals in nitrogenous fertilizers as compared to potash and phosphatic fertilizers.