Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometric Determination of Heavy Metals in some Agricultural Soils of Kwali Area Council, Abuja, Nigeria

Author(s): Akannam, Perpetua Okwukwe, Kakulu Samuel E

The concentrations of heavy metals Lead, Cadmium, Zinc, Copper and Nickel were determined in selected top agricultural soils of Kwali Area Council of Abuja, Nigeria using Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometric technique. The HNO3-HCL method was used in the sample preparation and a precision of 5%,3%,4%, and 8% for Lead, Zinc, Copper, and Nickel were obtained respectively. The soil pH varied from mildly acidic to near neutral (5.53-6.95) from the various locations and these are considered as normal for agricultural production. The trend of the concentration is in order of Zn>Ni>Cu>Pb>Cd. The ranges of the concentrations are as follows:(N.D-7.25), (N.D-0.17), (3.10-22.90), (1.00-9.70), (1.95-32.80) for Pb, Cd, Zn, Cu and Ni respectively. Generally, all the metals in the study sites recorded higher levels than the control sites. Metal-metal correlation was carried out using Pearson’s product moments. Most elemental pairs show no significant correlation with each other. This revealed that each paired element has no common contamination sources. The metal levels in the soils of the study area were generally lower than most metal levels in soils approved for agricultural purposes. This shows that the area would not impact negatively on metal levels in crops. The study has provided a baseline study in the metals concentrations in the soils of the area.

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