A study of the Effect of Electric Power Plants on the Soil Content of some Heavy Elements (Ni, Pb, Cu, Cd, Zn, Mn, Fe)

Abstract

The study was conducted to find out the effect of electric power generation stations on the soil content of heavy elements, where four stations were selected to generate electric power, which included (Al-Diwaniyah power station, Abu Gharq power station, Al-Haidariya power station and Al-Khairat power station) in the city of (Diwaniyah, Babil, Najaf and Karbala). Then four location were chosen within varying distances from the site of each station, which included (20, 50, 100, 200) m. The results showed a clear variation in the concentration of heavy metals in the soils of the sites within the distances between the stations. The results also showed an increase in the soil content of heavy elements in the sites close to each station, which decreased as we moved away from the station site. The results also showed that the soil content of iron and manganese elements fell within the natural limits of the permissible global determinants in all soil samples and their various distances, while the variation in the soil content of copper was within the natural limits except for the soil sites within the distances of 20 and 50 m that were higher than the permissible limit. with it, The lead content of the soil was higher than the permissible limits, except for the soil located within 200 m from the Al-Khairat power station in Karbala. As for the soil content of lead and nickel, all of them were within the permissible limits, except for the soil sites located within the distances of 100 m and 200 m for the two power stations of Al-Khairat and Abu Gharak in Karbala and Babylon, respectively. These increases are attributed to its proximity to pollution sources, which contain fuel combustion products and fly ash high concentrations of some of these heavy elements, in addition to the rocks that make up those soils, on which the soil content of heavy elements depends.