Cold ultrasonic acid extraction of copper, lead and zinc from soil samples

Abstract

A cold ultrasonic acid method for extracting Pb, Cu and Zn from soil samples has been studied. This work focused on studying the experimental condition for extrating trace metals from soil samples at ambient temperature (≈25 °C) using Syrian soil samples; the same conditions were applied to reference soil samples(SL-1, Soil-7, SDM, and BCR-32). A short exposure time (4 h), and 2 ml of concentrated hydrochloric acid were found to be best. Under the applied conditions Pb, Cu and Zn were quantitavely extracted, while Sr, Mn, Fe, Al, Cr, Co, and Ni were partialy extracted. The advantages of the cold ultrasonic extraction method are as follows: it is selective, it is matrix free, the extraction time is short, the amounts of consumed chemicals are small, the by-products of the process are negligible and it is environmentally clean, since no fume emissions are emitted. The only disadvantage is that it is not a real total digestion method. Comparable results for the proposed ultrasound method and the hot-plate acid digestion method for Cu, Pb and Zn in certified refrence soil samples(SL-1, SDM, Soil-7, BCR-32, Soil-6) and some Syrian soil samples are obtained.