Abstract

Speciation of heavy metals Cu, Cd, Pb, Ni, Zn, Mn, Fe, Cr and Hg was carried out on sediment of Agbabu with a sequential extraction procedure in the dry and rainy seasons of year 2008. Hg was not detected in all the fractions in the two seasons. In the dry season, all the metals were mostly abundant in Fraction-5, however, Cr (30%) and Mn (23.73%) had high abundance in Fraction-1, Zn (30.97%) was high in Fraction-III, Cu (45.14%) and Fe (31.67%) were also high in Fraction-4. In the rainy season, Cr (35.82%) was mostly abundant in Fraction-1, Zn (36.71%) was high in Fraction-3, Cu (29.28%) was high in Fraction-4 and the remaining metals were mostly abundant in Fraction-V. From the results of the two seasons, the metals had high abundance in Fraction-5 indicating firstly, low mobility and bioavailability, secondly, low degree of pollution by the metals considered and thirdly, the origin of the metals in the environment was likely to be lithogenic. The average potential mobility was calculated for the metals in the two seasons and the following decreasing order was obtained: Cr>Zn>Cu>Mn>Fe>Cd>Ni>Pb>Hg. @JASEMJ. Appl. Sci. Environ. Manage. December, 2010, Vol. 14 (4) 47 - 51

Highlights

  • Heavy metal speciation in sediment impacted with crude oil in the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria has been reported (Iwegbue et al, 2006)

  • Olajire et al (2003) studied the levels and speciation of five heavy metals in soils of industrial Southern Nigeria and found that the highest amount of Cd was found in the Exchangeable fraction and Cu and Zn were significantly associated with the Organic fraction

  • Some studies have been carried out on the Nigerian bitumen and Agbabu Bitumen deposit such as multielemental analysis (Adebiyi et al, 2006), environmental impact assessment of bitumen exploitation on animal resources of Ode – Irele (Lameed and Ogunsusi, 2002), compositional analysis of the oil component of the Nigerian bitumen (Oderinde and Olanipekun, 1991), Distribution of Polycyclic Aromatic hydrocarbons in soils and water from the vicinity of Agbabu bitumen field (Olajire et al, 2007), and solvent extraction of vanadium from Nigerian bitumen (Oguntimehin and Ipinmoroti, 2007)

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Summary

Introduction

Heavy metal speciation in sediment impacted with crude oil in the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria has been reported (Iwegbue et al, 2006). All the heavy metals were mostly abundant in the Residual or Inert fraction as follows: Cu (45.14%), Cd (64.66%), Pb (93.26%), Ni (81.28%), Zn (44.46%), Mn (42.55%), Fe (48.25%) and Cr (37.85%). These indicate that Mn, Cr, Zn, Cu and Fe had higher bioavailability in sediment than other metals such as Cd, Pb, Ni which were mainly available in the Residual or Inert fraction in the dry season.

Results
Conclusion

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