Assessment of Heavy Metal Contamination in Sediments in Sungai Pinang River Basin

Abstract

A study was conducted to analyse the type and concentration of heavy metals found present in sediments samples in the Sungai Pinang river basin, Penang. River sediment samples were collected at both upstream and downstream along the main river channel of Sungai Pinang and its five tributaries including Sungai Air Terjun, Sungai Air Hitam, Sungai Air Putih, Sungai Dondang and Sungai Jelutong. A total of 19 sampling points were selected throughout the entire catchment area where nine points located at the main river of Sungai Pinang and the other 10 points located at the downstream and upstream of each tributaries. A total of 97 samples were obtained four times from January to February. Two types of analysis were applied to measure the heavy metal concentrations namely X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) and Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES). For the XRF test, the selected compounds analysis containing heavy metals that was carried out were K2O, Na2O, CaO, MgO, MnO, Fe2O3, Al2O3, TiO2 and SiO2 while for the ICP-OES, specific heavy metals analysis were determined to test the presence of As, Ca, Cd, Co, Cr, Mg, Fe, Ni, Pb and Zn. The highest concentration of K2O, Fe2O3, Al2O3 and SiO2 at the main river were 2.80%, 3.39%, 18.52%, and 74.18% respectively. The highest concentration of Ca, Cr, Zn, Mg and Fe recorded at main river are 35.9576, 17.0469, 5.8392, 39.5626 and 199.914mg/kg respectively. SAH (DS) has the highest percentage of SiO2 with the value of 93.44% followed by Al2O3 with value of 6.75% at SAT(DS) and K2O at SD (US) with the value of 3.06%. The highest concentration of Fe, Ca, Mg and Pb are 56.4778 mg/kg at SAT (US), 34.8247 mg/kg at SJ (US), 3.3633mg/kg at SD (US) and 7.1662mg/kg at SAT (US). It can be concluded, the pollutants in the sediments of Sungai Pinang are contributed by the urban housing area, commercial and agricultural area.